What To Do If Someone Blackmails You on WhatsApp

If you are searching What To Do If Someone Blackmails You on WhatsApp, chances are you have been blackmailed online. Blackmail is a prevalent cybercrime that innocent people fall for daily. Blackmail is an attempt to obtain goods: money, favors, or information from a person by threatening to publicize content that would jeopardize their livelihood.

Labeled as an umbrella term, blackmail has many faces, the most prevalent online being sextortion. There have been frequent reports of sextortion on social media, including WhatsApp, if you would to know what to do if someone is blackmailing you on WhatsApp, keep reading.

Scoping Out Their Prey

Before we get into the right steps to take when faced with a blackmailer on WhatsApp. Let’s get into the mind of the criminal and exactly how these scammers pick out their victims. Blackmailers all have one common goal: money.

The sole purpose of blackmailers threatening you is for financial gain; this crime is their bread and butter so they treat it as their job and do it well. The majority of these criminals come from foreign countries, the top three being: The Philippines, The Ivory Coast, and Nigeria.

These criminals come from underdeveloped countries which gives them more of a reason to commit a crime. That can grant them access to fast money. 

Working as a group, sextortionists create hundreds of fake social media profiles across platforms.  You may face with sextortion on Snapchat, Instagram Blackmail or Facebook Blackmail etc.. In order to make the profile more inviting to others, they almost always provide a bio that may say something along the lines of, “message me for some fun” – this can lure in people who are lonely or just want to meet new friends online.

After creating a believable profile, they add accounts across all social media platforms and message as many people as possible, meaning the more they reach out, the better chance they have of catching prey.

Keeping all that in mind, if you are a victim of online sextortion, your scandal may start on one platform and then carry on across others. For example, if you established contact with one of these criminals on Facebook, it’s more than likely the crime will carry its way through other platforms as well like WhatsApp.

This is a common tactic  sextortionists use, they want to have access to more than one of your social accounts so they can threaten your exposure on multiple platforms, and have more ways in reaching out to you. This is why it’s so important to keep your privacy settings as strong as possible.

Can someone blackmail me on Whatsapp? What’s The Startegy?

In sextortion and blackmail, WhatsApp is a popular platform, but why is that so? Using WhatsApp as a sextortion tool has many benefits, including:

1. Can be used to send texts, images, documents, user location, audio and video files
2. Free of charge
3. Messages can be sent to any part of the world i.e., international phone numbers
4. Ability to use burner phone numbers to keep anonymous

Outside of using social media platforms as a tactic to reach out to suspects, texting applications like WhatsApp can allow these suspects to follow through with their plans just as easily. There have been many reports of texting scams, two of them being:

• Wrong number

A new technique used by blackmailers is to reach out to random phone numbers and start up a conversation pretending that they have been misdirected. This conversation can start off by a simple “hello.”   Once they are told they have the wrong phone number they will try to make light of the situation and start a conversation. Seeing no harm in meeting someone in such an inconvenient way, victims fall for this more than you think.

• Links

One of the most common texting scams are messages that provide links.

They use this tactic in two ways:

A message claiming you have become a cash prize winner, and in order to claim that prize you need to click a ‘link’ to provide further information.

A message asking for adult ‘fun’ and providing a link to an adult website.

More and more victims have fallen for these tactics making WhatsApp a powerful tool for blackmailers. So now what do you do if someone blackmails you on WhatsApp? You are in frequent communication with this scammer on WhatsApp and you don’t know what to do. Whether the suspect has access to your other social accounts or just WhatsApp, it’s important to know what steps to take to protect yourself.

What To Do If Someone Blackmails You on WhatsApp – Lock It Down

Blackmail, especially sextortion scams can leave anyone confused, alone, and scared. This is why the help of law enforcement and sextortion specialists are vital. Before you get professional help there are three important steps to take:

Documenting Communication

Document everything! Photos, messages, social media accounts, locations, names…everything you possibly can.

Change Privacy Settings

It’s important to make sure that your online presence is not public during this time. Locking down your profiles and obtaining strong privacy settings helps keep your information safer from exploitation.

Stall for Time

DO NOT pay the suspect. You might think that paying the suspect what they want will make this all go away, when in reality that can make things far worse. Once you show the suspect you are scared enough to comply with their demands and you have money available, they are just going to come back asking for more and more until you’re squeezed dry. Instead, play along with the suspect and try to stall them as long as possible while you seek professional help.

All in all, we hope that these strategies and steps help you recognize the danger that resides on the web, and gives you the right tools in avoiding future threats. Sextortion scams can be challenging to handle alone, which is why seeking help from law enforcement and specialists is vital.

There are plenty of companies that specialize in these types of crimes, including us. If you or someone you know is a victim of sextortion, do not hesitate. Reach out to us. We are available 24/7 to take on your case, and have a 90% success rate in dealing with numerous cybercrimes. Contact Our Sextortion Helpline Now.

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