The Gloss | First Person | One Young Man’s Story - Sextortion

In this blog post, we look at an article in The Gloss Magazine which shares the harrowing story of a victims account of a sextortion scam and what Nicola Byrne and the team at RiskEye do to support and assist people in these cases.

The mother of a victim of a sextortion scam shares their story with Katy McGinness at The Gloss.

This article highlights the ease at which a scammer can take a victim into their confidence over a significant period of time. An extraordinary web of deceit is crafted by the scammer to ensure they achieve their end goal of extracting personal images or videos. These scammers are patient and skilled and it is a cautionary tale for all.

The complexity of the scam is then discussed to highlight how the scammers move between social media platforms to take full advantage of the victims online presence and followers to achieve maximum impact. The scammers pray upon the victims emotions, hoping to shame them and humiliate them into complying. In this case the scammer wanted €3,000 otherwise they would share intimate images with the victims followers.

Nicola and the team at RiskEye unfortunately see these sorts of scams regularly and it is this experience that ensures victims gain efficient and focused assistance to help remove the problem. Meticulously detailing the events, reporting to law enforcement and knowing how to navigate the platforms alongside immediately securing the social media profiles help mitigate and solve this case.

Katy McGinness. "‘One Young Man’s Story - Sextortion."The Gloss Magazine, [4th March], https://thegloss.ie/dont-miss-the-april-issue-out-tomorrow/