Two ways you can help yourself in your recovery from your scam using our website:
Read, read, read the forum posts here regarding how scammers work, how to identify them, and what you should do if you run into scammers online.
Sections to read include ALL of the "Announcements" topics that are at the top of every section of the forum, "Important Information," "Help and advice," and "Resources." Particular attention should be paid to the topic on the top marked as "Stickies." {The icons look like light bulbs.}
Take a look at other types of scams in the other sections too, to get a basic knowledge of how those scams work and what to look out for. Read the media section as well to keep up with some of the latest scams that are occurring all over the world.
Doing this can help you to avoid scams in the future, and also give you the knowledge to identify scams occuring with your own family and friends. You may someday help stop scams on other people you know, making something good come out of your bad experience with your scammer.
If you have not yet listened to our podcasts, I highly recommend that you do. We have interviews with other survivors of scams, our staff here, and some of our friends that work in the anti-scam community. Also in the second half of most of the podcasts, we have funny improv comedy phone calls that we made to scammers. We play innocent "victims" to the scammers, and make up characters that seem to get them off of their scripts and onto our "weirdness?" in very funny ways. Education on scammers and laughter; both good ways to help you recover and be a strong survivor of your scam. Listen to them here:
http://scamsurvivors.com/podcasts/The podcasts are also individually described and linked to the youtube version here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1370Blackmailed survivors should definitely listen to podcast #11, an interview with a member who tells his story two months after he has blackmail scammed.