I would like to tell my story

[AlmostGotMe]

Hello fellow survivors,

First of all I am really happy that this forum exists! Thank you all very much for helping and understanding without judging!
I don't want to talk to my friends about what happened because it embarrasses me, so I have to write it down here. I have to tell somebody, for my own peace of mind.

I was scammed last Friday on chatrandom. Until then I never even thought about something like that could happen to me and as I was presented with a video of myself I was shocked and feeling helpless for a couple of minutes, as most of you can tell.
"She" came straight to the topic. Giving a fake reason she stopped the video transmission after about five minutes.
I gave "her" my Skype name and email address but not my Facebook though I was asked for it several times.
Pretending not to remember the Skype password we ended up at gmail chat, where she asked me about personal details. The questions made me suspicious, but I ignored that feeling unfortunately… Luckily I didn't have my full name or anything personal saved in my Skype account or gmail address.
All I gave away was my hometown, my age and my first name, so nothing more showed up in the video title. I had sent a picture earlier though, which I myself ran through google image search later and which didn't give any results back.
She had uploaded the video to youtube, showing my face and later my open trousers but never both at the same time. I flagged it right away and it was almost instantaneously removed!
I was told to send money via Western Union, roundabout 200$, to an account in morocco and promised the video would be deleted and I should hurry as "she" wanted to leave, getting impatient and insulting.
The scammer said, the video would be spread across Facebook and various other sites where it would accumulate money by getting clicks… (Do such sites even exist?)
In my initial panic, and due to her constant flow of messages, I actually registered to WU and was preparing the transfer!
While trying to find out if the scammer would get my real name by making that payment and changing my Facebook picture and reviewing privacy settings for Facebook and Skype at the same time, the rational thinking finally kicked in, halfway at least, which made me close the WU website before transferring any funds.
Roundabout half an hour had passed since the video was uploaded and I finally decided to cut the line, deleted my Skype account and my gmail address!
My last message was something like, I noted all your accounts, chat logs and IP address, which I now think might had been not the wisest statement, fearing of having him upset and made him even look harder for my personal details…

What followed was an evening full of paranoia, reviewing my privacy settings over and over again and feeling very stupid! About an hour later I finally had the idea to google the scammers fake name, which led me straight to this amazing forum.

I spent almost the entire weekend renaming accounts, closing down every profile to the highest privacy level possible, or even deleting them entirely and creating google alerts for everything that could point to me.
I searched for the fake name of the fake girl as well as for the name of the money recipient on Facebook and blocked every entry I found that was even close to these names.
I deactivated my Facebook the day after the incident just to be safe there, created another completely anonymous account and searched for my own name to make sure I am not discoverable.
The thought that he might be still searching for me makes me feel bad mentally and even physically from time to time when I think about it, though I am probably totally overreacting.
There's really no way left he could get in contact with me, right?
But there's still the fear that he might have found my profile before I closed it down, but then again, he could only be guessing that this was me, as I never mentioned my last name…
My friend list was always hidden but not the people that liked my cover photos for example. Did you know that there's no way to make cover photos on Facebook private? The only way is to delete them and leave that space blank.
I know it is unlikely but there's still the chance that he found my Facebook appearance by searching my first name and hometown, but if he did, he would have told me, wouldn't he?
As you may notice the paranoia is still not entirely gone

Reading through this forum helps me but it still gives it me a horrible feeling thinking about what could have happened and that it might not be over yet and there is this constant uncertainty if I am really on the safe side now…


Anyway, I've done a lot of reading about getting rid of your "digital footprint" and in fact I managed to remove it almost entirely, including raising removal requests through the google webmaster tools.
I guess it's almost impossible to make all your traces vanish (after all we're living in the digital age and I made use of that extensively) but I will gladly offer my assistance with what I learned during the last days if anybody needs help!!

Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think!
Let's get through this all together on our way to closure!


Finally, there is one huge positive aspect about being a scam survivor which we probably all have in common:
It makes us more aware of what we do and what we share in this, in that regard hostile world of the internet. Don't make yourselves vulnerable!
I really start to believe, that we all can learn something good out of this… I think I did!

Thank you for reading! Cheers!


PS: I've submitted all details that I remembered about my scammer through the report form.

[NewLight]

I am happy to hear that you are moving forward, and it appears that you have followed all the right steps to set you on the path to recovery, the first little while will be a little nerve racking but just stay positive and try to move forward. We are here if you have any questions or need help

[AlmostGotMe]

Thanks NewLight!

Maybe my story can help others as well..
For my part, I am about to smash my webcam with a big hammer!

[NewLight]

lol

That is not necessary, but just try to read some of the helpful links around the forum and get your self educated on things you can do to better protect yourself.

[Ruffled Feathers]

Hi almostgotme,

Fotunately, they didn't almost get you, but you are one of the lucky ones....From what I have read about your story, you have done all the right things to protect youself. This is not an easy process to recover from, but I can tell you from experience, you will recover and become a much stronger person than you ever thought possible.

If and when you can talk about your experience, please warn your friends that they could get caught up in this also, allow them to know what happened to you, you do not need to go into graphic details but just give them the warning.

The internet is now a dangerous place and that is what most people do not understand. These creeps are predators, it is a hit and run looking for fast money...never ever accept another email etc from them, block them everywhere you can.

Please take cae of yourself, get rest and eat properly, it will help in the healing process.

Best to you
RF

[ravi143kn2000]

I had the same experience yesterday . I am still paranoid about my video and pictures getting uploaded. The person asked me 200$ i tried to make the payment and thank god my card declined. So this guy asked me to do it next day morning. SO in the mean time , I messaged everybody on facbook friends list that my account was hacked and person is transmitting nude phots and videos and my morphed pictures as well so please delete it , and if u get any friend request from any person please decline it . And deactivated My account , I also called my local police to help and gave all the bank details given to me . I also sent the details to skype customer care and mailed them to block and take action against these person and if possible locate the person and escalate it to local law agency . I read on some site that same thing happened in singapore and the guy reported this to police. The Singapore Police the Busted the racket and arrested everybody. I hope the skype people somehow find him and inform the local Philippines law agency. I am still paranoid about it even after reading lot of similar stories. So i flagged my name on google as well for any alerts if something is posted by name. Luckily i have nice friends and i told them and they said if anything comes up will flag it themselves.
I am really scared but i have accepted the reality and ready to face the consequences if any .
Hopefully it will be over as quickly as it happened . And i also thank Skype customer care to be very prompt.
I hope i learn more about computers and become hacker and teach these guys some lesson and give a taste of their own medicine.

I am sure we all went through such things and its not the baddest thing happening in the world. People have done worse than this . I learned my lesson and i hope we will help everybody to not being a victim of such a blackmail.

[NewLight]

Hacking them or doing something illegal in retaliation is not the way. Take the time to educate yourself so that you can avoid these kind of problems again. You got to figure it out for yourself but doing something illegal in place of something illegal done to you doesnt make things ok. I am sorry you got scammed but try to stay out of trouble yourself in the process. If you have other questions about making your self even safer feel free to ask .

[ravi143kn2000]

Well when i said hacking i didn't mean in non ethical way .. you can have cyber crime units or task force in police itself and in every country to be on par of these hackers and spammers ,so many countries have technology that can be used to pin point peoples location through ip tracking . But they are busy dealing probing business men and their deals. And the people who exploit and blackmail people are earning billions every year.

What i meant to say one can educate himself about all the hacking techniques and use it in ethical hacking not in any unethical ways. I dont think so if we learn something to help other people and help law agencies is unethical. Its like using dynamite at work site in a useful way rather than blowing up people.

Anyway this was not what we want to discuss here. everybody including me learnt the lesson hardway . Some people do it and it never happens to them , look it this way we were just caught up in wrong situation in wrong time. Talking to you all really helped me and others to calm down and get back to real life . But what we should also do is to think of way to tackle this problem and spread awareness as well. Which of-course this is doing very well.

I also want to tell that i was talking to skype people . And they asked me bunch of evidences which i provided them. LIke screenshots of chat and photos, email scammers name and detail etc. We should add it to the list of actions we can take if someone get caught up in this. Just blocking them and reporting them doesnt solve the issue cause these scammers continue to use the name if they are just blocked . We should also try to get into touch with facebook,gmail,and yahoo or other sites people and ask them to open a window in the feedback system where such victims can contact support and try to minimize damage . like temporarily blocking message to friends from victims friend list on facebook from unknown user. OR make a system where all photos and videos are verified for sexual contents.

i mean there are so many ways we should all make an effort not just deal with our ordeal but also making sure no other gets into it and finding ways to make it happen. Its not easy at seems but some steps should be taken not just to prevent it but to be proactive and catch the scammer. It happened in singapore recently where the victim went to the police and gave the details and police actually caught the whole group of scammers who made millions before getting caught.

I will only say follow the process given on scamsurvivors website but also take further steps to trace the culprits down. little by little we can make it happen and i am pretty sure all the victims will feel more safe when the culprits are behind the bars.

[Big Al]

Hi Ravi,
Whether or not we agree, Hacking and/or the sending of Virus' is illegal in most Countries including the U.K. where this website is based. That is the biggest reason We tell people to just not do it.

We are glad that you have been helped by the knowledge that has been posted here at SS. It is true that if People were more insistent that Law Enforcement become more active in trying to make arrests or continue to suggest ways to services like Skype, Yahoo,....Etc. that more could be done to shut down Scammers. The hardest part though is having the scammer in a country like Malaysia or Nigeria perpetrating the crimes in U.K or the USA. Most governments do not cooperate in investigations of 419 crimes. Sad as it is. It's the nature of the beast at the moment.

Take Care,

[ravi143kn2000]

Hi Big Al

When we talk about hacking its always perceived as negative thing. Which is not you can read more about hacking on internet . Its the way we use it is wrong same techniques are used by various giant companies like Ibm,microsoft to secure their network and same techniques are used by non ethical hackers to fool people.

Anyway i am being scared about where my videos will come up , none of my friend reported me yet and it has been just 2 days. It may or may not cone up online in future. But i was thinking what are the websites where they will post it.definitely youtube cant be the only one , if people can help and list down the names of the websites they found their pics and videos and put it up on this site it will be bit easy for future victims(trust me there will be more) to look through the list of websites. SO that they can be taken down as quickly as they are uploaded.
We can also form a team (non profit organisation) under scamsurvivors or as an affiliate who will only work on finding the pics and videos on the web for the victims. This is just another way to put the victims at ease and find the original source.