recovery and reassurance

[hopefullywillhelp]

It has been almost a year and no issues. It very rarely even crosses my mind at this point. I'm only posting now because I randomly just saw a show where a character had gone through a similar extortion type thing and it made me think about my situation and I just wanted to come back again to offer my heartfelt gratitude to the admins and all those who shared their stories and advice. I have already donated twice, and I encourage others who have benefitted from this site to do the same to make sure it's always available to victims.

I also want to offer my sympathy and reassurance to anybody currently experiencing this quite shitty scenario. For those that are in the middle of it now, imagining every "what if?" scenario and freaking out right now...I totally understand...I was right there as well for a while. I could barely sleep, distracted at work and at home...my mind racing with countless scenarios playing out in my head. I am SO glad that I was able to find this site and forum in a short period of time, because it truly was amazingly helpful and helped alleviate my stress immensely. I think I read almost every relevant post on this site lol.

My advice is simple and the same you will get from the admins: Just FOLLOW the instructions! If you do, it is extremely likely that you will be fine and nothing will happen. And while I know they recommend to delete your account and start with a new one if possible, that was not really an option for me (for reasons I won't go into here) so I did not actually delete my Facebook account (which is where they got me) or any of my other social media accounts. I simply followed the instructions and stayed completely off all social media for more than 3 months. And when I came back on I changed all my profile pics and set all accounts to maximum privacy settings. Everything has been totally fine, I have had no known attempts at being contacted and nothing has been released.

One more time...THANK YOU ADMINS!

[sharkbait]

So it’s just about been three months since I fell victim. I have not been contacted since I went dark and have not seen anything of mine posted online. My situation was pretty similar to other stories mentioned here, but there were a few slight variations:
- They were using Instagram and posing as a profession model/pornstar (took a while for me to realize they were just posing and using some stolen pictures).
- They send the first message, get to talking, mention they are a pornstar and have a profile people “subscribe” to. That’s how it gets moved to Google Hangouts and they request money in the form of gift cards in exchange for pictures and videos for a certain amount of time (days/weeks). They mention the money goes to help their family pay bills and whatnot.
- They straight up ask for pictures of you also which leads to requesting nude pictures of you.
- You get offered more “services” in exchange for more gift cards. That’s how they try to get video of you.
- Trying to get out starts the blackmailing.

Having followed the steps provided on this site helped me tremendously. I actually like not having a Facebook anymore. Reading experiences on here helped show the scammers don’t retaliate. The thing that took me the longest to get over was the fact that I don’t know where they were located. Based on the times they would message and were silent I think they are probably in the time zone that includes Nigeria and Morocco. Their style of English was similar to examples described in this thread, so I really think they are located somewhere in Africa, which helps me mentally knowing a lot of those countries have laws against homosexuality and porn.

(Removed advice related to finding scammer. SH)
Obviously don’t try to go back and make contact with your scammer just to figure out their location if you’ve already followed the steps from this site.

One last thing, I recently heard on a podcast some research that details humans tend to believe things people say and do to be true until it becomes without a doubt false. So it’s just human to believe someone and give them the benefit of the doubt, until too many red flags accumulate or a major even occurs that shows they are lying. The scammers are attacking this part of our psychology and it’s really nothing you did wrong.

Hope some of this helps others since my situation was similar but with some variances.

[SlapHappy]

It really makes no difference "Where?" the scammer is located. Our advice works the same on all of them.
If you really want to know...
Your scammer is in Africa. Probably Nigeria or Cote D'Ivoire . Definitely not Morocco.

[Gamaran]

A ok I was hoping for good news for everyone.
I was scammed 5 years ago, sometimes I go back to read to see if there is any news.
I wanted to inform you that a year after the scam, I redid a facebook profile with my real name and photo, I reactivated my old account to see if anyone would contact me. I kept the profiles open for about 6 months, if they were still looking for me they would find me
but it didn't happen, nobody contacted me, closed the accounts (I don't want facebook anymore).
I'm fine now, but sometimes I think about again and I do some research, but nothing ever happened.
Sometimes i search my homonym on facebook, there are many people with my name, many don't have a photo and some are new accounts .. my only fear is (if the video has not been deleted) that scammer thinks that one of these profiles is mine or that one of these new accounts without photo is of the scammer who returns.
Until now my fears have been unfounded, nothing ever happened, those profiles have been always really homonymous (evidently my name is very common). With the passing years I make these thoughts with more objectivity, but sometimes i am afraid these my fears are founded and not the fruit of my paranoia.
I hope some of your words can help me to totally erase these ideas. Inside of me I know i am no longer in danger, but sometimes these thoughts make me forget that it's all over.
Hugs to all

[SlapHappy]

I was scammed 5 years ago

Five years is an eternity for blackmail scammers. You have a better chance of being eaten by a shark, struck by lightning, or more realistically, being run over by a bus.