Son has fallen victim to online scam - advice please

[Seaside1234]

Husband has just phoned to say that my poor 15 yo son has been the victim of a horrendous online scam - he's been conned into sending nudes, blackmailed and then had the images sent to contacts on his Instagram. I'm furious, heartbroken and so frustrated that he did this - I thought kids today were wise to this kind of thing, but the scammers are clearly evil pros. Husband is ringing police. I'm so frightened what this might do to him. Please help with any advice or support. What can we do to help him through this?

@Sweetvalleyhigh1234 thank you, it turned out the image of messages being sent was photoshopped and nothing was actually sent, so nothing to remove.

This happened to the son of a friend.The scammers even rang her home to demand money. She just laughed down the phone and said, 'Big deal. Everyone has a body that is naked under clothes. Didn't you know that?'

By pretending no one gave a shot (they were all actually quite shaken) she got rid of them.

PP's idea of him letting friends know they are deep fakes is a good one.

Those of you who've gotten through this before, any advice on how I can best support him? 48 hours later, it would seem that the actual threat is over, but he's feeling pretty rubbish, saying he can't believe he was so stupid, struggling to believe that it wasn't his fault. He went back to school today and unfortunately there was a whole assembly on exactly this theme, which probably hasn't helped. Although I hope facing up to going to school and nothing happening has been helpful in some way. He's been really brave but it's breaking my heart what those bastards have done to him.

Seaside1234 we sadly had the opposite, it had got so deep she was distraught we were making her stop, furious and did absolutely everything to get back to talking to them. I suspect an unusual reaction given what I've read but totally horrific. So I've no advice as for what to do as we had to cut all access to the internet, monitor her bank, her whereabouts.
I would consider very limited internet and maybe some counselling and keep praising his openness as one of the things we've discovered is that there has been so much secrecy and lies in our situation it's destroyed the family. Rather than move on and get help my sd chose to carry on and has cut us off in the process so keeping that open conversation is so important. Good luck and well done to your son for talking and stopping it

Definitely counselling, a friend had a DS that something not dissimilar happened to and I think the counselling has really.helped.

Sorry to hijack but this has come to light today for me with my just turned 12 year old daughter,she had secretly downloaded Snapchat,even though she knows it's forbidden,and was sent nudes and coerced into sending nudes to a supposed teen boy,
and the images have been sent to schoolfriend and been shared.

I thought I'd done all the right things to protect her from this,only allowed her to have WhatsApp,only allowed to add school friends,I'm able to check her phone at any random time.Shes been warned about social media and how people aren't what they seem,had the talk about private parts and keeping them private etc and all to no avail.

The police have attended and basically said there's no way of tracing the person,they are letting the school deal with the girls who were sharing my daughters images and Social services are being informed,probably to check what a shit mum I am.

I don't know how to help my daughter deal with this,she's already had classmates call her disgusting to her face,how is she supposed to go back and face everyone.

@Freeasabird76 Sorry to hear this has happened to your DD. What are the school doing about it?

So sorry to hear. Sad to say this is not uncommon happened to a friend of a friend of dd2.

Personally I would brazen it out be brisk and dismissive, deny to all and sundry that my Dd sent them herself and insist to my last breath they were deep fakes some little sleaze had made of my child.

And she wouldn’t have a phone for a while either. Digital detox summer. If she can go and stay with relatives until it blows over so much the better.

@TiddlyCove sweet F A by the sounds of it.Got to chase them up again tomorrow.

Thank you.Kept her busy busy today so she didn't have time to dwell.Tomorrow will be another hard day.

@Freeasabird76 I'm so sorry to hear that, what a despicable thing to do. Was it someone she knew being evil, or was it a blackmail scam? I would brazen out the deep fake line as well.

Not sure if I'm glad or sad to hear that you can do all the right things and they can still fall for this. I told my son that humans gonna human, and they only use this scam cos it works.

@TheaBrandt A boy at my son's school also killed himself after getting threatened by scammers re nudes. I wonder if it was the same or it is worryingly happening more often.
He was a young teen and vulnerable and it was horrific. He panicked and was overwhelmed.

@Seaside1234 Thank goodness he came to you and told you!!!

Freeasabird I'm so sorry, how bloody awful for you and your DD.

All I can say is that these things blow over. Hold tight.

Sadly we had this happen to us last year.

I called the Police immediately. They sent someone from serious crime round who took the information of the account and a copy of the messages sent. They said they will see what the could find and explained that depending on the circumstances our child could also face prosecution for distributing child porn, despite it being their own nude and it's still an offence.

They tracked the IP address to an address in Canada and therefore couldn't take any further action but they passed it onto the relevant services over there and said if they were told the outcome they would share it.

We then got a phonecall two days after that saying they had reviewed the situation and wanted our child to attend the Police Station. We went and they said they would not be taking further action but gave them a talking to about what's legal and what isn't and reminded them that now their nudes are potentially on child porn sites anywhere in the world.

I informed the school, the Police spoke to the school and social services.were also involved, all requiring interviews with all of us. All services were thorough and really supportive of us and knew it wasn't anything sinister and no abuse involved.

At the beginning of this year, the Police contacted us again to advise that a further 14 children from the same school had been in the same situation with the same account and all passed over to Canadian authorities who had been in touch and they had been successful in getting the person behind it. They wasn't allowed to share any info about the person other than they were being dealt with. They can't tell us about what happened to the images either, other than they are out there somewhere.

It really taught our child lesson. We've always had parental controls, monitor usage and had a really open relationship with our child, they were able to come and tell us without fear when it happened and they realised what they had done.

Yellowphantgrey

Your police force sounds amazing. We had the total opposite unfortunately. They didn't want to help, shrugged their shoulders and left us to it. Maybe when we are stronger we will complain.

In our situation it reinforced the message from the men. That it was normal to be doing the stuff she was, we were controlling and overreacting and she should continue. Which we suspect she does and our biggest fear is she is one of them now. She won't talk to us because she knows we will take every step possible to make her stop.

I am genuinely pleased that your experience was different and hope that experience is more common than ours. I've certainly had my eyes open to the horrors of what's on the internet, and we thought we'd done everything like Google family, limited social media etc etc. heartbreaking.
It sounds like your son has listened and can move on with his future

It's taken a long time to get over it and without sounding dramatic, it did really affect us.

I felt like the worst Mom, like I'd let him down and failed. I was slightly reassured that even the Police were convinced by the account. The account had several friends in common with my son and they were using a photo of someone that used to go to their school and left just before we went into lockdown. The effort behind it was ridiculous and they were counting on all the children being too embarrassed to talk about it to each other.

They posed as a girl online. No idea what they were in reality.

In terms of the Police force, generally useless round here, however this was luckily (nor not!) The hot topic of the moment so was dealt with. The Police work alongside the school with matters like this and knife crime so we are lucky in that sense.

Not dramatic at all. I'm not sure we'll ever fully get over it. Big hugs to you and your son

Her first day back was awful,the girls involved shared the photos again!!!!
The school only seem interested in blaming my daughter,no punishment seems to have occurred because the girls are still in classes,verbally abusing my daughter,everything I insist on a meeting I'm stonewalled and the police are not returning my calls either.
It's been a complete shitshow.

@Freeasabird76 oh god, I'm so sorry. The police need to let those girls know they are distributing child pornography and should treat them accordingly - might make them think twice.

OMG that's awful. You should stand your ground and demand that the school do something. These girls are distributing non consensual images and it's underage. This is appalling

I'm so sorry your daughter has gone back to school and had this.
I'd contact the police and report them. I hope school do something.
In our situation nothing was distributed round school, my sd had no real friends which is what lead her to the online chat in the first place so it's all stayed away from real life as it were.
These girls need to understand they cannot distribute photos of that kind and school need to intervene. I hope you get some support from school this week

Dear Good Mom,

You are incredibly fortunate to have a son who feels comfortable enough to come to you with this issue. Bless him and consider rewarding him 👏for trusting you with such a significant problem, as it surely felt overwhelming from his perspective.

There was a famous case a couple of years ago involving a 16-year-old boy from a prestigious local school who fell victim to a similar scam. Sadly, he didn’t feel like he could talk to his parents or anyone else about it, and the shame and embarrassment led to a tragic outcome.

Please reassure your son that even top tech consultants with decades of experience, including myself, can fall prey to these scams. Scammers exploit people's emotions and passions, pretending to solve problems or alleviate fears.
A foolproof plan to avoid these situations is to never spend or send money online unless it’s to a known and trusted store. Anyone you meet online promising something that sounds too good to be true is likely a fraud. Scammers often create fake accounts, using convincing photos and names to build trust, only to exploit it later.

Additionally, poor grammar or spelling can be a clear warning sign of a scam. Remind your son that it’s always okay to ask for help and that he did the right thing by coming to you.

Be grateful he came to you. What a good son and rest assured, in his life, if he is ever in big trouble for a mistake of his own or falling trap to someone else's - ensure him he can come to you. You'll help him get through it no matter what.

All of our kids need to know this.

Dear good mum,yes whole heartedly agree its fantastic that your son felt comfortable to come to you,I feel like that's where I failed the most.