Ironic for us to have a thread like this right after **Projammer **started this thread, but it’s real life now. I was talking to someone on a dating website today, only to find that it was a trap.
The person exists in real life, all right, and I talked to her on Skype in a video chat, but now she claims to have captured video footage of my head and face from the Skype webcam and says she could upload a fake video of me “masturbating” and send it to my family and friends and also put it on YouTube to ruin my life. (She found my Facebook page, too.)
(I, of course, did not do that (masturbate for her) - I was fully clothed in front of the webcam, just talking and typing during the Skype chat. But she has footage of my face, and could presumably splice it onto a fake naked body and make it look like me.)
Sure, I should call the police, but say what exactly? I’m not sure exactly what this person is after, although my best guess is blackmail money.
If she really has created a video, it will probably be obvious that it’s fake, and if she really is trying to blackmail you, it’s probably an empty threat (because it will probably be obvious that the video is fake).
What should you do? Laugh at her. Faking video as you describe is very difficult to do convincingly. If she did it, it will be obviously fake. Also, unless you have some weird conversations, she has video of you chatting and not whatever your “masturbation face” may be.
I mean, sure, report her to the dating site of course. But the threat itself is a joke. Besides, unless you’re married or something, what’s the threat: people will know that an adult masturbates? If some weirdo sent me footage of a family member masturbating, I might say “Ew” but I wouldn’t hold it against the person or “ruin their life”.
Document and save what you can. You need as many details as possible to document your side of things. Don’t pay her, don’t give her any more details. Do contact the site and report her. Make sure you understand what their procedures are for dealing with this matter, and how they will follow up with you.
You may also want to research what the laws are in your state about this type of blackmail using sexual images over the internet. Some states have laws that specifically target this (with real or faked images), but some do not. Another place to look for resources might be a sexual assault or rape crisis hotline. They are trained to handle all types of questions regarding sex crimes and harassment. They may be able to point you towards additional resources in your community that can help you address this.
Is there enough personal information in your profile for others to identify you? I’m trying to figure out if having the site close out your account would be helpful at this point.
I would urge you to be proactive and learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can. After you’ve gathered some more information, you can decide whether to go to the police or not. I hope that this threat turns out to be sound and fury signifying nothing.
I concur. I’ve heard of this scam, and it requires the actual footage. She is not going to be able to actually make anything believable looking. And everyone knows that photos can be faked.
Yes, Ellen does some awesome stuff. She uses lookalikes and such. It’s not purely digital. You can see what happens when you try to make it entirely digital–even the big studios put out something that looks uncanny.
The original scam involved actually getting footage of you doing things. It was actually this guy who would get girls to do things for him. And then he used it as blackmail to get them to keep doing stuff for him. She’s probably running that scam, but realized she could trick people even without going that far. Sure, some people will call her on it, but many won’t.
It is a little worrying that she has your Facebook. There shouldn’t be that much information about you available from a dating profile plus Skype call. I’d look into that, and try to remove that link. But she’s just using that to scare you.
You didn’t specify what she wants you to do, I notice. I would presume giving her money of some sort. So I think you could probably just ask her send you a copy of the video before you’ll pay, and see how that goes. She won’t be able to show it to you, and then you can call her bluff. But that’s just me spitballing.
I do note that anything she sends to your Facebook Friends will appear in their junk mail folder, which most people don’t even seem to know exists. At least, unless she’s able to actually Friend them. But then who friends strangers, other than guys friending fake hot women? And, it’s the latter, isn’t that also embarrassing?
BigT, I have said this time and time again, but findibg out major details about a person is something you can do with 30 mins of time and a good internet connection. If you are even slightly tech savvy, you can do a hell of a lot more. Its not worrying or surprising that the girl found “his facebook”.
I forgot to add that you could tell the police exactly what you’ve said here. It’s not their job to provide legal advice, but it doesn’t sound unreasonable to me to state your case and see what they have to say.
Unless the video is of you yanking in the middle of a school locker-room, I’m not seeing any significant issue either way.
Surprise! Adult male views porn in the privacy of his home and masturbates to videos of a women whose job it is to make adult males masturbate in the privacy of their home!
Sorry, but the OP is a little too bizarre to be believable. As others have mentioned, there is no way to convincingly fake a video like that - to do so would take an enormous amount of technical skill/experience and effort. Not to mention that even if someone did, it would in no way ruin anybody’s life.
I can’t help but feel the OP isn’t being 100% honest about the situation. But if I’m wrong about that I apologize: taking the story at face value, I would say she’s a complete weirdo and you have nothing to worry about.
This is something worth remembering. The world has changed, most people shouldn’t be ashamed of perfectly respectable adult sexual practices, even if they’re slightly kinky. I mean, it may be embarrassing for others to see it, but it’s nothing to be ashamed about.
Some annoying places may fire you from your job over it, though they really shouldn’t, and it could break up an existing relationship; but those kinds of situations tend to be on the knife edge of inevitable anyway.
We all swear, we all do sexy things to ourselves and each other, we all poop, we all dribble snot out of our noses, none of these things should shame us into submission in this day and age.
Yes, anyone skilled enough to do that wouldn’t need to scam people for a living–they would have no problem getting a top job in any F/X studio they wanted.
When she asks for money, tell her that your money is locked in a trust. The only way to get to it is to bribe the administrator, which is probably going to take about $3k, which you don’t have right now - but if she can come up with it, you think you can bust out about $210 k.
Then, if she falls for it, the administrator is about 1-2k away from doing what you guys want. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Deactivate your facebook account so it is offline. It won’t be deleted, but it will be gone from the site. You can reactivate it at a later time. Your friends won’t be able to see you either.
Do you have any idea where she is really from? Not where she says she’s from, but where she is really broadcasting from? Often, the scammers are in foreign countries and there’s not much you can do.
Put it this way: If people could put together convincing video of people’s heads on other people’s naked bodies, we’d be waist deep in fake Taylor Swift porn videos and stuff. It wouldn’t be the unique skill of one woman rolling dudes on a dating website.
Has she actually threatened to do any of these things, or just commented on what she could do? If the latter, she might just be someone with a weird sense of what’s appropriate and interesting conversation.
Maybe it’s her way of flirting with you! You know, ponytail in the inkwell, spiders down the dress, teasing, threats to create fake pornographic images and distribute them to your family…
One way is you can tell every body that you know what happened. Once you told everyone there is no threat anymore.
Also collect all correspondences with her and save them.
Balls in your court then as to if you want to proceed against her, but you have effectively spaded her. She can release them, most everyone would just click the abuse button, or delete the email.
