Bitcoin Forum

Crypto Extortion Attempt

All users please be wary of the following extortion activities being attempted by this individual:
Clayborn Stubson   <kivberyleyl@outlook.com>

uses crypto address - 1LdVsxHTqGuN2vdKMk4YiUDKchR4cmwQ for deposits obtained from his unwitting victims.

He sends you an e-mail with a grouping of image.png snippings in which he claims to have been monitoring your digital activity on your computer, including any Facebook and smartphone communications for a designated lengthy period of time, and he then threatens to expose all activities through various forums, regardless of their nature.

He demands that $2,000 USD in Bitcoin (BTC) be deposited into the detailed account within 24 hours otherwise he will post all information through several different forums and other outlets.

This person has been reported to the FBI Chicago branch office - Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) as well as other Federal agencies.

Please do not use the crypto address provided above for any illegal activities (like hacking it and draining the account) as that would not be nice, although very well-deserved.

This is a scam. Don't send any amount with these kinds of email. If you are guilty and scared, you'll definitely send the amount that they're asking because you feel that they have actually tracked you down and they can see what you are doing.
This is fake, there will be other emails that will try to extort you for the same reason so don't be fooled.

There are many such scams that try to blackmail gullible users for sending them coins. I had a similar email with a different email address that said they have a webcam footage of me masturbating in front of my laptop. I knew it as a scam at once as I don't use laptop for porn and masturbation.
They use a lot of email IDs mostly with fake credential and there's not much to do as they comes from countries that have scam as an industry.

sometimes I also laugh to myself when someone sends me an email and says if I have traces of my activities. deceptive way like this only for small children :D

It's a scam I also received similar emails they are demanding a huge amount or they will be exposed me masturbating in front of a computer while watching porn which I never did because I never watch a porn, I just ignore all of their demand unless they can show me proof that I really did.

never trust anything if there is no evidence, let alone those who ask for money from you ... cases like this have been very frequent and those who are afraid will be immediately deceived by similar cases

How about his identity? Is it proven to be him? Cause maybe he is framing up someone using other's name instead. Its better if you can post a warning on Beginners and help section or scam acccusation thread. Good that you share this with us so everyone who have same email from this guy has been alerted that its a scam trick.

Never trust any emails and dont click some of them are pishing site that been set up to steal our funds.

I received a quite similar email some time back and I did nothing except deleting the email and reporting it as spam. It's just them using fear as a factor to extort money from their victims.

As a crypto investors you need to stay away from mails from unknown sources, it won't hurt you if you ignore mails in your email, don't even bother to open them since you aren't expecting the mails.

And again those who send money to people don't know what they are doing, honestly this shouldn't be happening, I expect people to be more smarter this days, anyone who ask for money are no doubt scammers

As long as you are not doing any illegal jobs online there is nothing to fear with this extortion.

Who cares for the crypto currency you earn online , even how long they are watching you as long as you are doing it in legal  way you don't need to be afraid and  don't pay them for what he is demanding.

True! For junk mails that I didn't expect to receive, I just delete it. I have received a lot of good offers through emails. However, you know it, it's just too good to be true! Sometime I was affected by the fear of missing out, I read those emails, but then I realized there is nothing such as easy as they said!

How do these people attack?
I think that is the most important thing we should talk about instead of just an agreement that it is a scam address.

Maybe we could provide warnings to other members so that they could keep themselves safe from these attacks.
How are they hoarding e-mails?
How do they know the e-mail owner does own cryptocurrencies?
Where do they get it or is it just random?
Should we now hide our e-mails to protect ourselves?

It's very unfortunate we have these kind of individuals in the crypto space however you have to be wary of such persons because if you are not careful you will put yourself in a big mess. Thankgod the security agent like FBI will take care of him

That is a fraudster. It is best you ignore. I found a mail similar to that in my spam folder sometime last year. I was glad Google already figured out that it is from a spammer. Try not to click on any link within the mail.

Probably they know your email because you sign up on website related about cryptocurrency (e.g. wallet, exchange, casino). It's why we should separate our personal email and thrown away/temporary email. If you want to sign up on suspicious website, I suggest you to use temporary email (e.g. yopmail).

This is an old school scam, if they ask to sent any amount money, all you need is ignore it. No need to trust an unknown email and check carefully the url. Most of them is share phishing sites.

Can't say this is a scam. If somebody comes and threatens me to give him money or else he will report me to the police, report for what crime? I have nothing to scare because I'm clean so his trick is useless. Why anyone gives a sh*t if they are normal honest people?

As others have said, do not fall for this trick, this is an old and rehearse way to extort crypto enthusiast of their bitcoin. I don't know how you get that message though, but it looks like your email has been leaked already so I will advise you to change email asap specially if you are using this for all of your crypto activity.

If you wanted to check if your email is already compromised, I will advise you to go here:

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

I know it is easy to assume these are all scams but the problem of why victims do give in is because they have this natural nagging feeling that What if he's right? So to allay these fears, simply ask him: send me one proof of a picture of what you have on me and I will send you the ransom.

This also will help police as he could forget and send you a pic or screenshot with his digital stamp on it;)

Yes, if the evidence is not there what should we be afraid of, anyways that ordinary fraudsters can only bully everyone via email and other social media accounts, even though he himself does not know anything about us.

This is nothing but a cheap scam attempt therefore just ignore it. I have seen people complaining of such emails and for the fact it is in their spam folder means it should be ignored or in fact deleted. One thing to understand is that, scammers are everywhere and they will continue utilizing every opportunity they see to scam and defraud innocent people, thus one needs to be wise in all aspects. Lastly, thanks for bringing the information here so that those who are not much informed can be aware of such scam or extortion attempt.

All these dumb scammers :-X . Well it’s only for those they can scare with this rubbish. If someone sends me that rubbish I wouldn’t even reply them not to talk of having anything to discuss with scammers and fools. Anyway, I am not the type that goes everywhere on the internet posting my email, or using it to sign up on useless sites nah. My emails are always kept secret and I only use them on trusted sites only and I also mind the things I post online. These kind of threats don’t scare me.

And I would like to add that people cannot hack an address, if that was possible he will deserve it lol. But, an address can’t be hacked. If I’m wrong, I’m open to corrections. I am saying this because as far as I am concerned the quantum computer has not yet arrived.

   Aemma I think you are right, this is nothing more than a cheap scam attempt! I get scam e-mails all the
time, I just delete them, don't even read what they have to say. How I know it's a scam, their headline is
about some big earning, profit, investment possibility, or something similar.
   People will have to learn to not fall on big promises, is it in e-mail, social network or something third, be
careful or you can stay without money.

If he truly has real images and info of his victims activities then it means he strikes from inside. He has an insider and his victims will always be selective base on the info he has.

I would like to believe the OP statement because a situation like that have happened before where hackers recorded people naked video/secret and requested for Bitcoin in return of not exposing his victim. But the OP claim was not backed with any evidence even the email content which he claimed the scammer sent.

Scammers are just full everywhere hoping to take advantage of the ignorant ones.  Couple of weeks ago, I received an mail promising to help me fast track my withdrawing processing on one exchange that is going into extinction.  He asked me to send some amount of Bitcoin to him.  Immediately I knew he was a scammer.  We just have to be more careful because scammers device different means everyday.

In 2018 I also received an email like this, but I didn't send them money. And in the end, everything was okay and nothing happened, he didn't even know me and just sent out spam emails like that to fool the weak.

yes, definitely this is a scam. I have been emailed also by such entity and blackmailed me to deposit a certain amount of crypto else they are going to share with the public sensitive information about me. It is obvious that it is a scam so I ignore the mail. It is a shame that such people would do such a thing in expense of damaging others.

Yes, this is just spam and the scammer is trying to spam it to receive money from someone. Since joining bounty, my email has been compromised, every day I receive a lot of emails from scammer and scam projects in this market.

It feels like it's not 2020 but 2000 when people are believing in such letters.
The best protection against fraud is to simply delete emails from mailboxes you don't know and not even open them. The simplest rules of Internet hygiene will already protect you from 99% of dangers and problems.
But people still do not understand that

We'd probably see more of extortions soon especially because some of the ICO websites back in the days did have our information with them which some of us have sent data for the KYC.  With no jobs and source of income, people may try different kinds of extortion to anyone some may just be fishing for what you could have done in the past and if you believe to it, you might be sending your a years food supply to them. Be careful let's just leave these scambags starve to death.

Scammers will never stay hungry because there are always new ways of cheating and there are always new people in this market who do not know the rules and lose their money. we just all have to be as careful as possible

I have never come across such scammers, but thanks anyway for the info.  Very often they write to me in telegrams, with various offers to buy super profitable trading courses and various similar frauds.  They also post on Facebook and sometimes even I wonder what tricks such assistants come up with.

A good example that we all should be carefull and vigilant.
Its actually a good scam, and can freak the hell out of the its victim and fall for it.
on the other hand we should always remember, scammers here and all over the net is active and could turn up with a good way of fooling anyone

Yes, it is. I remember back a while ago there were some unauthorized app can capture a picture of you when you are watching porn then use is to blackmail. Image how freak out if they got you like that.

Scared of what? Of hodling Bitcoin or tokens? Well, he last time I checked hodling cryptocurrency wasn't a crime, at least not yet in sane societies. I believe OP's fright is exaggerated for what he described as an extortion attempt was a cheap ploy.


This is a common practice. Sometimes I get email bombardment of such mails and I think I blame Bounty Managers who expose our email addresses on spreadsheets whenever we apply to bounties.

What if someone does not have 2000 in bitcoin? You know if you start accepting such fraudsters you cannot do anything in life, life is the name of fighting for your rights and resistance against the unlawful and unethical forces that try to undermine or deprive you in anyway possible.
Never surrender to such guys and at the same time stay calm and cool, ignoring them is the best thing to do.

Indeed, a very cheap scam that only 0.1% of people would fall for and if they do we are entitled to call them fool. This is a very old scam and hey it is already 2020, why everyone is not aware of this? lol
Scammers will really try everything to go into our pockets, even if they would look dumb asses to us. What we need to worry about is the softwares/extensions/application that we are downloading they might be composed of malware that will dig your data or worst your cryptocurrencies.
We all should ignore emails, especially if you barely remember if you signed up or at least visited the site. Scams can be easily seen through emails tho.

You know your activities more than  those people who are claiming that they are watching you, only people who are not aware of this
scam attempt will drive and send money to this scammers.

If you have something that you are protecting from your computer you are very keen to make sure that you have all the protections
that's needed to avoid this kind of hacking.

Most likely what happens is that you registered in a website that had to do something with cryptocurrencies and they either got their email database hacked or it was the developer of an ico that sold his mailing list to the best bidder, that way hackers get emails of people that they know have an interest in cryptocurrencies and have held some at some point, I have gotten a lot of those emails in that past but I just ignore them as I know they are just trying to scare people away to make them part with their coins, just make sure to never click on any link on that email as it could infect your computer to try get to your coins.