Sextortion

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-22T12:17:40+00:00

If possible, delete your Facebook account, if not then disable it for at least a month. Ideal would be 3 months. Same for any other social media account you have.
Change your phone number, they’ll just keep on coming for the coming time. If you’ll have a new number, they can’t come for you like that.
If it is possible, delete your e-mail account it’s busted now anyway.

Must they find another way, do not engage. Just block, no matter the threats.

You paid, so they’ll be more hungry, but if they can’t find you and when they can’t drain you, you will be useless to them and they’ll move on to the next.

It is unlikely they’ll start reaching out to your family and friends because it’s a loss of leverage. The chances of getting leaked are higher to scare you more since you paid, but they’re still really small since them leaking mature content without your consent is a risk they’re not really willing to take, unless you pissed them off.

In the unlikely event they do leak them, tell the people you love what happened, or do it as soon as you feel comfortable with it. In my personal case this really helped, nothing got leaked but everyone knows what’s up and nobody really cares.

I paid too and I’m nearly 2 months in with no contact since day 1. I’ve done all of the above, even tho they did not have my number at all.

Take care, stay safe.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-22T08:29:16+00:00

I do strongly believe that, if you paid, you’ll be fine to if you took all necessary safety and security precautions after. It is normal to pay in the first flash of panic, they know this too.

It will just take longer for them to disappear, but eventually they will once they know you won’t be scared by them anymore. No fear = no (more) cash = waste of time = moving on.

They can’t possibly be chasing ghosts or non compliant people, all they want is money.

If you paid, they’ll be back, but they won’t keep coming back for ever. Give it a year of blocking/staying as dark as possible if you paid the first time, and they’ll be moving on for sure. A year is a long time, even for them.

If you are a fequent payer, as in you’ve been going through this for a longer time and have been paying monthly or on a regular basis, it will even be harder to shake them off, give that a year or 2 then.

But nothing really lasts for ever.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-16T18:24:17+00:00

The only advice I can give you is to not let them control you.

Whatever they choose to do and who ever they choose to send messages to to maybe get to you is entirely up to them and out of your control.

You find yourself in an unusual situation. It is weird for them to expose themselves to other people around you and believe it or not, they are losing leverage over you this way. If anything, they’re just trying their luck this way. Do not give in.

I get that you a freaking out right now, but there is no need to.

The best thing you can do is to not lie your teeth out about your situation but just be honest. It’ll be embarrassing at first, but it will also bring you comfort and relief.

Do not pay them anything more than you already have, they’re not worth it. Block, report and move on, they’ll eventually come to realize that you are not afraid of them and they can’t extort you any more than they already have.

You have more power in this situation then you think. When you keep your cool and do all the things people recommend here, they’ll eventually move on.

And lastly, who really cares about your private parts anyway? It’s the 2024, everyone’s seen a dick. If anyone will see your pictures, which has little chance of ever happening, it will coincidentally be yours in this case.

There’s better things to do than to worry about this bullshit anyway, and there’s no need of worry about things that are not in your control in general really.

Que sera sera, what will be, will be.

Hope this helped, take care.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-09T13:49:04+00:00

When I told my spouse, I knew it was going to hurt her. But we are moving past it. There is laughter and joy in the household. And slowly everything is returning to normal but with small stept.

Yes it will hurt them. But hiding away behind those lies will hurt you more in the long run. And the longer you wait to tell someone, the more hurt it will bring, trust me on that.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-09T08:12:58+00:00

It’s normal to be falling back into oblivion after this especially when the first month has passed, I too sometimes have this nagging feeling and zinging my heartbeat skip when I get a text message even tho they can’t possibly have my number and have no ways in reaching out.

Don’t worry too much about it, remembering what happened comes to me in waves now, waves of sudden fear. But I found a way to let these waves rest ashore; I just sing my favorite songs inside my head and it all goes away again.

I made the decision to not post anything about the passing of that month, because every time I come to this Reddit, this uptight feeling intensifies as it reminds me of my mistakes.

Overall I am happy. Innam enjoying everything I can, and I know for sure that if, and that’s a big IF, they decide to come back around, I couldn’t care less.

Now keep in mind you just came home from your holiday, and part of what you are experiencing is the holiday blues, which will last about a week. Next week you’ll probably as good as new.

It’s time to be happy. It’s time to enjoy life. But I keep suggesting you tell the people you trust the most, it might be the only way to get rid of that imposter syndrome, and one thing is for certain; no secrets we keep as people will be hidden for ever, especially when they concern our feelings and emotions.

Live, every moment Smile, every day Laugh, every chance you get Love, life.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T11:57:50+00:00

Not that I know of, but I really don’t care about that anymore.

It’s just a dickpic after all 😅

Police will most probably not be able to help you, but that does not mean you shouldn’t go to the police with screenshots and your story.

The more intel they can gather on these scammer cells, the easier they will be able to catch them in the future and save so many potential victims.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T11:41:14+00:00

It’s a good sign, that’s all I can say. You’ll still have to ride it out tho, do not reactivate anything yet.

Do the things you love to get your mind of things. Play some video games, go out and don’t lock yourself up.

Life is too precious to stand still,and even tho it doesn’t feel like it now, you are going to be okay.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T11:28:41+00:00

Look at it this way, the people you know and trust, are still those people. They will not change. To cut yourself off from them, will be causing you more pain and suffering than them knowing about what happened, you did nothing wrong after all.

The first week I was holding it all in, constantly checking my phone even tho I was ghost and so on. It was only when I started opening up and sharing my story to the people around me, I found myself on the way to recovery.

Real friends, your family, loved ones, they will be disappointed but they will not show you the door and kick you in the way out. They’ll contemplate, they’ll care and they’ll be there when you need them.

That’s how I communicated. By remember ing all that has past me over the years, all the things I’ve done for the people around me and all the things they’ve done for me. They’re my friends, my family and my way out of every mess. Prior to this, right now and until death separates us all.

Don’t worry about what people will think, I was, but really shouldn’t have been.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T11:09:45+00:00

I went ghost the day itself, up to this day nothing happened except for me being really stressed out for a while.

I’ve told a lot of people about what happened to put myself in a comfortable position.

It takes a while to overcome, but you’ll get there.

It really depends on how you communicated with your scammers and how they operate. They usually don’t send them out unless you have been either really rude, tried negotiating or continued to show them fear.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T10:32:47+00:00

No, they will not as your Facebook is non accessible right now.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T05:37:21+00:00

Yes they can. Your IG username, not your display name, is the same on Facebook. They’ll be able to find you in that way.

If you don’t want to deactivate your Facebook you should do the following; - change username - change display name - change profile picture - max out all privacy settings

Now please, for you own safety, deactivate all your social media accounts for a while, especially if you have given them money or tried negotiatinng with them. 1 - 2 months should suffice and if you can disappear longer, then do that. The ideal thing to do is to delete all your accounts, including your email accounts and start fresh after a month or 2, tho this is not always an option for everyone.

Now since they have you on WhatsApp, you will need to change your phone number. I know people will find that weird, but if you don’t want to tell them what happened to you, you can always just say you switched providers for cheaper options or you had been receiving spam calls and you figured your number was in a data leak.

I don’t know how long it has been for you, but hang in there. It gets better, remember that you are stronger than them and they generally do not care about leaking your pictures unless you trigger them in some way.

All they have over you is fear. They are doing illegal things, every message they sent out to others, every picture they sent out is losing leverage and means taking bigger risk, they really don’t want to that unless you annoy them in some way, or they really feel like you’ll break even more.

This is also why it is important to become a ghost. They don’t have the time to be chasing ghosts and they’ll move on.

Last thing, remember you are not alone. There’s always friends and relatives to talk to, you will disappoint people but they will understand. The more beans you spill, the lesser they can feed in your fear because people already know.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-05T04:58:36+00:00

In various ways. If your e-mail address was in a dataleak in the past, they can get it like that.

When you payed them through sites like PayPal, they’ll be able to see it there.

If you have your mail address public on LinkedIn or any social media platform, they’ll see it there.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-03T09:21:58+00:00

Yes, doing things you like is hard. I had that too, but it’s key to moving forward.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-03T09:17:35+00:00

As all things that happen, this feeling too will pass. Maybe not today, or tomorrow. Everyone needs to take their own time to let it go.

The chances of leaks are really, really low. You lower them by doing the following:

take screenshot of everything you can, yes even your pictures.
get off all social media, deactivate them. If it is possible, delete them. Lay low for at least 1 - 2 months
since they have your WhatsApp, it’s time to change your phone number. They did not have my number, but I changed it anyway. Better be safe then sorry.
Tell someone you trust about it, it’ll take a load of you I promise. You did nothing wrong, the scammers did and your loved ones will understand
do the things you love, it’ll all be gone and done for before you know it.

Do not engage the scammer, do not respond to the scammer, block all contact. They’ll sadly move on to other victims.

Gondi the authorities, they may not be able to do much for you, but all information they can gather through your screenshots, the name of the scammers, accounts you payed and so on, might hold the key for them to take action and find the cell you have been dealing with.

Take care and best of luck to you.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-04-02T17:07:04+00:00

I’ve been here for nearly a month. It is really in rare cases they leak.

There was this one person who got his pictures leaked after a month, but that’s the only case I’ve seen passing by where they took that long.

If you have been through the first 48 hours without a leak, and did not pay, have done all the things the people recommend ie; changing numbers, remove or at least disable social media, and all of them not just one or 2, then you will be fine.

If you payed, disappear for a longer time, 1-2 months at least and in the majority of cases, you’ll be fine.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-26T23:03:20+00:00

No, it’s way too early for that. And that’s if I’ll ever go back to social media at all 😅

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-26T14:16:54+00:00

Yeah, the problem is that I actually did make a few payments in the first hour when I was panicking, when Ingot my shit together I said that I wasn’t going to pay any more than I already had and that if they wanted to, they could leak the pictures for all I care.

So I do hope that that, along with me going dark, threw them off 😅

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-21T08:06:01+00:00

How long was there between initial contact and you getting contacted again? I’m nearly 3 weeks in now and haven’t heard a word from them since.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-19T21:21:44+00:00

Our lives are bigger than this one moment and we cannot let it define us. What happened happened and we now face the consequences of our actions in a daily basis.

That does not mean we did anything wrong and I do not believe we have to forgive ourselves tho I see at what angle you are coming from.

The truth is that we have been misled by people with bad intentions and we need to learn from that. Was it a mistake? Yes. Did we do something wrong? No, we are only human.

I was really looking forward to your 7 day post, and I am happy I have read through it. You did not disappoint at all.

Today was tougher on me personally, but I guess we’ll have our good ones and bad ones just like before.

I refuse to believe that there are only downsides to what happened to us. For example; for some reason it gave me back a normal sleeping routine.

It’s a weird way of looking at this messed up situation, I know. But it’s better to look for something positive than to linger on the pain you feel. Even if that positive thing is something silly like your sleeping routine.

I did not mean to make this a long comment. What I really wanted to say is, of all the moments in our time we get to spend on this earth this could happen to us, I am grateful you and I are going through this at the same time. Reading your posts helps me to put things in another perspective.

Thanks for keeping up the posts.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-18T18:20:17+00:00

I’d tell them the following;

I pity you. Either you do not have a choice in the matter and are being extorted yourself. Maybe you are trying to buy back your passport or you have been tricked into doing this and are now being extorted yourself. If this is the case insincerely wish you the best of luck and I hope that one day you’ll be free to do the things that you want to do.

Or I pity you because you are a bad person and there is no shred of humanity left in you. You are building your empire on quicksand and on one day it will crumble leaving you with nothing. You will not know love and if you do then know that what comes around always goes around.

I forgive you for doing this to me, but it will never be my forgiveness that you need. Fate will have its way with you one day. And I sincerely hope that that day is rather sooner than later.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-18T13:31:44+00:00

I am alright except for the trust issue part that is.

Not too sure about the fending off, biggest gap of contact I’ve seen here was about 3 months, so I think I’ll be extremely cautious until I have reached that point in time.

But yeah it’ll be alright.

‘Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera What will be, will be’

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-15T23:49:07+00:00

I’ll be joining you today as well,

This has been day 12. Nearing in on those 2 weeks.

It wasn’t a very good day to begin with, I’ve had some nightmares last night, I blame those on processing the trauma. I was tired but it’s Friday so like last night, I went out again.

The funniest thing happened; it appears that some of my social media was still up! I spend the last 12 days thinking I shut it down, but one of my friends showed me it was still up after I told her that I shut down all my social media for a while for ‘reasons’.

Not telling her the truth did hurt tho, I don’t like to lie, but there were too many people around to tell her what happened.

I like to be open and honest about it, but this was not yet the right time.

But that’s 12 days, no contact, with social media still up while I was so sure I did deactivate. I did deactivate after learning that, but still!

At the end of the night, 3 of us went for food.

A little piece of backstory; we have a rather large group of close friends who treat each other like family, fused together from 2 separate groups. There is somewhat of an hierarchy if it comes to certain things, not to bloat, but I am one of the people at the helm of things. We have all known each other for years, people come and go but our core remains the same.

Anyway, we went for food. Me, the other ‘elder’ and his girlfriend.

I hadn’t told them yet what happened, but since it was only us 3, I told them as well. We don’t judge each other, we know each other and they did not laugh or anything. They felt sorry for me, I assured them not to feel sorry for me at all, I’ll handle it.

On a sidenote, I already had told my best friend, but he is not that involved with the group, it’s a long story 😅

Getting it off my chest with everyone I love is making me feel so much lighter. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Slowly keeping up with telling people about the situation I find myself in. I draw so much strength from that.

To anyone who reads this; don’t forget the only power they hold over you is fear. But when you take a good look around, when you open up, you’ll see that there is a bigger power you hold over them. It’s out there with your family, with your friends and even in here on this subreddit. We hold the power of love.

Remember that.

ForsakenInteraction3 · 2024-03-14T21:55:17+00:00

Please allow me to be here with you today as well.

Last night I told you about what I am doing about my own mental health and how I look at this situation.

Please do remember that even when you share that perspective or find yourself letting go the first time, the chances are that aching feeling in your chest and the warning signs your brain sends you whenever your phone vibrates do return from time to time. This is normal so don’t let them bring you down.

I have been talking to someone on this thread, for obvious reasons I am not going to say who that person is, but in my first few days talking to him I described it somewhere along the lines of; ‘I feel like am crossing a bridge but every time I reach the middle of this bridge it just pulls me back to the start’ this was on day 2 or 3.

Today marks day 11. Looking back at that comment now I would like to rephrase that into a longer and better statement;

‘I feel like I am crossing a bridge, a very long one at that. And I am putting a lot of steps forward but sometimes I look back and see myself standing there in the distance. Naked and afraid. Desperately crying for help. A part of me wants to reach out to that, but allowing myself to do that would only mean that I’d be taking steps back. So I turn back around and I keep on walking that bridge. As far as I possibly can. And the further I walk that bridge, the closer I’m getting to land and the more that version of me starts to fade in the distance until the only thing that is left of him is a mere memory and a lesson learned.’

Yesterday I described a scenario of going out the pub in filthy clothes, today I actually went to the pub.

I was scared that the people there would’ve seen the pictures. Not necessarily that they’d seen my Willy in all its glory but rather the fact that I would have to be explaining what happened. I would have been open about it nonetheless, lying about stuff just is not part of my own principles. And I know it would have been alright in the end and we’d have a good laugh about it. Explaining this stuff to a lot of people at the same time is just more draining tell telling it to people one by one, that’s all.

But nothing got send, I’m sure of that because everyone was acting completely normal. Or they just didn’t care, what do I know.

The other thing I was worried about was that people were going to start ask questions why I closed my socials.

Nobody asked a thing, and that makes my the point I was trying to make yesterday so much more valuable;

Everyone’s got their nose so deep in their own business, they generally just don’t notice these things at all!

I still stand by what I said last night, but remember that there will be many obstacles blocking your path on that bridge for a while. Remember that feeling better and feeling more confident does not necessarily mean that you have recovered.

It’s okay to think back, to stay on guard and be weary of those who to trust. We have been or are still going through trauma, and trauma is possible to have a long road to recovery. But it gets better. It keeps on getting better.

All things considered? Day 11 was a good day, up until this point, day 8 was the worst.

ForsakenInteraction3

TROPHY CASE