Posted on 10/06/2019 1:34:19 PM PDT by ransomnote
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Beginning in August 2017, Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) began identifying various individuals who reported that they had been extorted after using a dating website (the “Website”). In general, each victim reported communicating on the Website with an individual the victim believed was an adult. Then, after the victim received and shared sexually-explicit photos with the person the victim believed was an adult, the victim was contacted by a person who claimed that the victim had communicated with an underage minor and needed to pay the minor’s family to prevent law enforcement involvement. The victims made payments via money transfers through Western Union and Walmart and/or through the purchase of Green Dot MoneyPak cards.
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More at link
There’s a simple way to avoid being victimised like this - don’t give explicit photos of yourself to anyone.
I had someone try that on me.
The story didn’t really make sense, but a quick internet search after talking to the fake law enforcement officer revealed it was a scam.
Usually it’s a dating profile with a young age say 20. They quickly move to phone text, where they send you a naked picture unsolicited. Then you get a call from a fake law enforcement officer who says he’s investigating for the father.
The claim was that I had committed a crime by possessing the picture that had been sent to me unsolicited. And the girls father had found out and was upset and was considering pressing charges.
When pressed the fake law enforcement officer had to admit that he had not called me from an official number. And that he was unwilling to give me the name of the office he worked with in case I wanted to contact him through official channels. They didn’t call back after that.
What didn’t make sense was that if the story was true, the girl had committed crimes of producing and distributing child pornography across interstate lines. And the father is seriously considering reporting his daughter’s actions? I don’t think so.
Never put out on the first email.
No, read my post #3.
They send you a pornographic picture they claim is an underaged girl and that you’ve now committed a crime by possessing the picture.
I thought they were supposed to be protecting us from Muslim terrorists.
Might be best to go back to those times.
Right. I had that backwards. So you can’t avoid it. Horrible.
I wonder if Homeland security is involved because dating scams are often overseas, often originating from Africa or Russia.
But this particular scam is supposed to have originated on the east coast. I think the scammer that contact me claimed to be in North Carolina. Who knows where he was really?
Yeah.
Although now if a 20 year old wants to go to text, I tell them up front not to send any obscene pictures. And if they do anyway, I tell them it reminds me of scammers that claim the pictures were underaged and I report anyone who does that to the FBI internet crimes division.
Most young profiles go away when I tell them not to send anything obscene. The one that ignored that went away as soon as i mentioned that I report incidents to the FBI.
So there are ways to protect yourself, but you need a very healthy dose of skepticism and a willingness to research scams to participate on dating sites.
well, other than the criminals, the extortion, and the pornography, how’s the online dating going?
“don’t give explicit photos of yourself to anyone.”
But Mark Zuckerberg requested them...for our safety.
(lol)
If they tried that on me, I’d start sending nude pics of me until they paid me to quit.
Has there never been a nude pic that didn’t go viral fie seconds after it was put online?
Mark Zuckerberg can stuff it.
Yes, it takes a lot of effort and research to stay on top of all this. New scams all the time.
“Used to be one met dates at church functions and other social affairs. “
Billions and Billions more have met at the bar, or wherever adult beverages were sold, or otherwise provided.
I’m pretty sure we could go back 10,000 years on that one.
For better, or worse.
But it is a point well taken. The enlightened Euro-Christian culture, starting about 500AD, showed us a better way to live, barbarians that we are. By 800 AD Charlemagne consolidated the Holy Roman Empire. And just about every white American is the progeny of that first establishment of enlightened civilization.
And the Jews started about 1,500 years before that.
But, alas, the Pagans have taken over. The division between law and morality was always the norm, we an aberration.
And I don’t see it coming back in my lifetime, or centuries thereafter. We can rage against the darkness, and go down fighting, but we cannot substantially alter the march toward annihilation.
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