But I never even HAD an Ashley Madison account!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just got this in my spam folder:

"Your account at the cheating (affair website) aka Ashley Madison…

Hey there!

If you want to keep your cheating and lies secret from your significant other, your family, your friends and work contacts then pay very close attention to this email. As what we demand is non-negotiable and you might ruin your life if you decide to ignore this email.

You must send exactly 2 Bitcoins (BTC) if you pay within 48 hours (approx. value $470USD) TO THE FOLLOWING BTC ADDRESS: 1CNrUCKbuHc1RS9XtWxCVbLHMuvhqwkedH (copy and paste address!!)

If you fail to meet the 48 hour deadline, you must send exactly 5 Bitcoin if you pay after 2 days but less then 6 days 23 hours from send time of this email; to the following BTC address: 1CNrUCKbuHc1RS9XtWxCVbLHMuvhqwkedH (copy and paste address!!)

On the 7th day if you do not pay the non-negotiable amount your significant other, family and friends along with your employer will receive copies of all the hacked data screenshots, credit card transaction logs which include ip address, billing name and address and messages and profile from the cheating site you used to be unfaithful.

If you do not pay within the time frames we have set fourth this data will be in the hands of the people you wanted to keep your cheating secret from.

We are aware that you probably don’t have (bitcoin) BTC at the moment, so we are giving you this time to get BTC and pay us.

**If you need help locating a place to purchase (BTC), use the website called localbitcoins, google it, if you dont know about it. This site makes bitcoin very easy and quick to purchase using multiple methods. On localbitcoins sign up and choose to buy the bitcoin (BTC) with western union or money gram wire , find a seller of your choice (localbitcoins is a “ebay” like site with sellers with many sales and a high rating being trustworthy) pay with cash at western union or money gram when you send the wire to the seller as sellers don’t accept payments made by credit card. After you send wire to seller provide the seller with a copy of the receipt and when they verify they with send the bitcoins (have the seller send the bitcoin directly to the bitcoin address we provided you with OR if they send the bitcoins to your localbitcoins wallet on site instead you will have to log into your localbitcoin wallet and send to the bitcoin address we provided you with). It will take less then and hour and a half for us to receive the bitcoins once you wire the money to a seller on localbitcoins, the seller will give you a confirmation of payment through site and we will let you know we received. You will get the information needed to send a western union or money gram wire from sellers page after you choose a seller and it will give you the exact amount to wire to seller.

Current price of 1 BTC is about 235 USD, so we are fairly cheap, at the moment. But if you ignore us, we will ruin your life and move on to other targets.

IMPORTANT: You don’t even have to reply. Just pay the 2 BTC (or 5 if its after 48 hours) to [above mentioned bitcoin address] we will know it’s you and you will never hear from us again.

If you need to contact us feel free but you do not have to you only need to pay and we will disappear.

But if you ignore us, and don’t pay within the time frames specified we will make good on are word.

If you think about reporting us to authorities, feel free to try. But it will not help. We are not amateurs. The best thing that can happen, they will go publicly about it. We will, again, get some free publicity. But for you, you will be ruined the damage will be done.

It’s a one-time payment. Pay and you will not hear from us ever again!"

I feel like I’ve missed out on so much by not being blackmailed by people who mistakenly think that I signed up for a website that I didn’t. I’m going to call their bluff. Let them tell my family. I’m divorced, so who gives a shit if she thinks I was on there? No kids. Parents are dead. I really could not give any less of a shit about them “exposing” me.

I just find it funny.

2

Wow!

Much less than the normal level of spelling and grammar errors than these things usually possess. I wonder how the success rate for mass blackmailing compares to email scams from Nigetian princes? :smiley:

3

I read an article shortly after the whole scandal that seemed to present evidence that there were at least some AM accounts that used the email addys of people who hadn’t actually ever signed up. IIRC the people concerned found themselves on the “exposed” list, used the “forgot your password” link to get the password, logged on and found their email address used with somebody else’s profile. So your email may have been used without your knowledge.

But of course it’s more likely that some chancer is just spamming their blackmail attempt as widely as possible in the hope it hits AM users who are stupid enough to pay up.

4

It’s the new Nigerian email spam scam!

5

Yup, it’s a low cost of entry with little risk to the spammers.

6

People read spam?

Huh. :confused:

7

best part of the scam is- if anyone pays, they know they have a live one - a real live one thta actually wants to hide something.

(having never used BC, I assume they can track the email address of the payer)

8

No they cannot, unless you leave it as a comment in the blockchain.

9

Then… how would the scammer know you paid them? Or is $470 enough per dupe?

10

Presumably you’d email them to an address in the spam, or they just don’t care.

Pretty easy to set up untraceable email addy using tor, the weak point is the BTC because acquiring it and using it is a pain in the ass for your average non techie.

11

I’m glad I am such a miser for my money… other than buying ebay cheap stuff (never been stiffed or poisoned, yet) or … my sons buying game stuff for whatever game they want to be the top 60% of… cos we aint monied enough for any higher than that… and to pay legal scammers like zynga for overpriced stuff.

My “grandchildren” or future royal husbands… can get themselves home and find someone else to fund their trips/wills.

12

“… I have a Dolly Madison account!
Please don’t tell my friends and family about my Zingers habit!
I’m trying to cut back, I swear!”

13

So how long *have *you been cheating on your diet?

14

They don’t care, it’s not like they’re going to follow up with you. All they need to do is set up worry in the right subset of the population (guilty and gullible) then sit back and count the Bitcoins.

15

good to know !

16

“No need to kick up a fuss, dear; I’ll have your Spam. I love it!”

To the o.p.: I recommend responding with a scam of your own, threatening to expose their child pornography collection and demanding payment in queen palm fruit.

Stranger

17

The OP may not be the same guy, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see a user named Superdude at Ashley Madison.

18

Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me, either. But if I was going to sign up for a site like that (and I have no problems with people who do. I’m not puritanical like that), I sure wouldn’t use a name that people that know me would be able to associate with me, if that makes sense.

19

To make it even worse, since we all discovered that there were no women on AM, this just targets guys who signed up to a site to NOT be able to cheat!

20

It reminds me of a scam I read about in Victorian London, where the scammers wrote to all the women they could find in the city directory with a letter asking them for money or else they would reveal that the recipient had contemplated or had an abortion.

They got a 20% return.