Teen son been a victim of a scam

[worriedmum223]

NC for this. Over the weekend my ds14 has been the victim of a sextortion scam. He was contacted on Tik Tok by someone posing as a girl who coerced him into sending nude photos. As soon as they had them they threatened to leak them to his Tik Tok contacts unless he paid money. My son did not initially tell us, but we had notifications from his bank account of him trying to access money which prompted a discussion and despite initially lying about the reason, he did eventually come clean.

I am absolutely heartbroken and shocked. He was beside himself and in tears. I’ve never seen him so shaken. I have drilled into him from a young age the dangers of social media and how you never speak to strangers and certainly never share personal information or photos. I have contacted the police and am meeting with them later today but trying to keep my son out of it for now because he is so mortified and upset.

I am worried on a number of counts.

Firstly if they do actually leak the photos which would be horrific for him. Although I’m led to believe this is rare and they are more likely to just move onto the next victim when they realise it’s a dead end.

Secondly if they try to contact him again now that they have his number and email address (all contact via Tik Tok and WhatsApp has been blocked but they could find other ways). His phone has been removed at the moment but he will need it back at some point and I can’t monitor it all the time ( when he’s at school etc).

Thirdly whether he could be in trouble himself for sending and asking for explicit photos at his age.

But mostly the emotional impact this could have on him. He was so embarrassed and upset. The fact he didn’t initially feel like he could be honest has upset me. And of course that he did this full stop. I get teenage boys have raging hormones but it’s such a stupid and out of character thing for him to do.

Please no lectures about social media. All of his friends have it, it’s part of life and I really thought I’d done a good job educating him about the dangers. If anyone else has been through this please let me know your experience and what happened next.

Call their bluff; they'll move on.

Don't be bounced (by him or anyone else) into thinking you have to give the phone back. Maybe hold off on that until he's 16, or consider a dumb phone.

Yes, we blocked them and reported where needed but always that worry that they’ll share, reading the messages from these people, they really are manipulative. He certainly won’t do it again & phone access taken away straight away.

Sorry you’re going through this. No, nothing happened. No photos were never released and no money was ever exchanged. As soon as ds let us know I took the phone and informed the scammers that it was his mother and we were aware and reporting to the police. Didn’t block immediately as didn’t want to lose any evidence but I kept hold of the phone and there was never any more contact after that.

The police have never come back to me about anything which I’m not surprised about as I don’t believe they were in this country.

It was a really horrible thing to happen to ds and it makes me sick to think how he must have felt in those few hours but ultimately it was a good lesson for him never to do anything like that again.

It’s rare that scammers will share the photos, they aren’t interested in that. Once they realise they aren’t getting any money they move onto the next victim. I really hope your son is ok, just be supportive to him, he’ll be feeling very vulnerable and embarrassed.

If they actually posted pics of that nature, of a person who's underage, they'd be in the frame for distributing child pornography. No logical reason for them to do it, when the aim was only ever extortion.

Thanks everyone for the messages. This morning they have reached out to threaten to share via a social media platform so child is obviously very worried. We’ve blocked on that platform too but having reported it, the response was really poor from them. I thought they were meant to be putting processes in place to support young children but it’s certainly not happening at the moment.

Never felt so anxious for my child and so disappointed in their actions.

Your poor son. Thank goodness he told you.

I would suggest everyone talks to their children about this scam, including the necessity of informing parents asap if they ever do fall for it, that they will not be in trouble and that parents + the police is the way to handle it.

Absolutely, please talk to your children about the dangers especially ahead of the summer holidays when they are likely to want their phones more.

The police officer who came was excellent, she was really reassuring and spoke to them but was also good at listening and getting them to talk.

I genuinely would have never expected it from our child, but having read the messages they are master manipulators and like the police said this is basically a job to the scammers. I just hope they stop but they will mean they move onto someone else 😢

I get it. I did too. But please don’t let your son see that. He will already be feeling mortified and vulnerable. Teen boys are ruled by hormones a lot of the time, I really thought mine knew better too. Sometimes it takes something like this to make them realise, harsh life lesson but valuable in its own way.

These scammers are utter scumbags though. There are many cases of kids killing themselves over it when they haven’t felt able to tell a trusted adult.

Your poor son. And poor you too 😢
How awful for you all

Yes definitely change his number and emails etc , and he starts all over again with his social media profiles. He can tell his mates he was hacked and locked out of them.

This is utterly horrifying for you all . I Guess it could have been so so much worse. And he did eventually talk to you. That must have been so awful for him but proves that you are his safe place.

Hope he can move on quickly from this , if he needs to be “sick” for the last week of term I don’t think that would be the end of the world and he has a nice long summer break to recover from the trauma

This happened to my son (17.5) in January.

he blocked them then reported online to the police who followed it up in May. They were great. Warned him not to do it again as he could get in trouble sending pics but also that he did the right thing reporting. They said they’re going to try and investigate where the number is linked to.

Sorry this happened to your son. I hope he’s ok

TW: Suicide.

The classmate of someone I know killed himself after this happened. He was found hanging in his room by his brother. He was 13 and the brother even younger.

Honestly, these people just don’t care how much damage they can do. Thankfully our child has said they would like to attend some counselling sessions & has been really open and honest these last 36 hours but can see why it can drive some kids to suicide.

So sorry to hear about the person you knew, so sad x