Think my ex partner may have sent me an anonymous email pretending to have seen an explicit recording of me

[Olliesmum8822]

I’m gutted. There’s two possibilities. Either it’s my ex partner trying to scare me or he has shared a video of me and someone has seen it and emailed me. Have reported the email to the police. They’ve taken an initial report but will follow up for a statement and I don’t know what to do.

What a horrible thing to happen. You have done the right thing in reporting it to police. I hope they catch up with whoever is doing this to you.

Does such a recording exist? Are you sure it’s not just a scam?

I get loads of emails like this. They're scams.

Do not reply. It may be a scam but you did the right thing contacting the police

There is an email like this that has been doing the rounds for years, it is very unpleasant but a scam and not personal, I have had it several times. I hope it's not your ex.

I hope it’s a scam. I know people can secretly record, I hope this hasn’t happened to you.

I’ve had this type of email also, and as others have mentioned, it’s a week known scam. Hope this is the case for you. Did the email contain specific details that sounded familiar or was the language generic?

Have you had emails from his genuine email address before? You can check the IP.

This isn’t a generic email that could be sent to anyone. There’s a specific reference in there that could only have originated from me or my ex partner (and it isn’t me) so it’s not a scam/speculative.

adding an edit. One of my ex partner’s friends could also have been aware of the specific reference. But this isn’t a scam/phish

Its a phishing/sextortion scam. Very common unfortunately.

Are you on good terms with the ex? Worth contacting them to say police are investigating it?

He’s blocked me. I asked him about this before he blocked me and told him I’d reported it to the police. He denied all knowledge but also suggested I was overreacting. He’s said he’s blocked me to protect his feelings.

If you hadn't spoken to your ex then I would have tried to style it out -

'Thanks for the heads up, have had a few messages about this now. An obsessive ex and AI aren't a great combination 🙈. Police are hopeful they can do him for harassment with so many reports, if you could tell me who you are that would help massively.'

Might have confused him a bit if he's as thick as he sounds.

But hopefully you won't hear anything more if he's shat himself at the mention of the police.

I’m honestly hoping, as awful and sad as it is, that’s it him, and not someone else he knows. But what’s horrible is I might never know 1) who sent it, and 2) whether there is a recording that has been shared. I have to decide whether to ask the police to investigate further which could involve sending them to my ex partner. It feels really difficult.