Bitcoin Forum

I received this email today:

Unfortunately your data was leaked in the recent hacking of the Patreon web site and I now have your information. I have your tax id, tax forms, SSN, DOB, Name, Address, Credit card details and more sensitive data. Now, I can go ahead and leak your details online which would damage your credit score like hell and would create a lot of problems for you.

If you would like to prevent me from doing this then you need to send 1 bitcoin to the following BTC address.

Bitcoin Address:
1QAQTyhCzAfvp8uLpneBNamWTNRR1hx9Cp

You can buy bitcoins using online exchanges easily. The bitcoin address is unique to you. Sending bitcoin takes take, so you better get started right now, you have 48 hours in total.

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It was from this address:
sharingservices@aol.com

with a reply to address of:
samanthainus@gmail.com

Just wanted to warn everyone out here.

Just a tip though, there was an actual hack of data on Patreon and the information was dumped online. (https://patreon.thecthulhu.com/) While I'm unsure what this dump contains, and I think this is likely just a scam attempt at extortion, you should probably check the dump to see if your info is there regardless. If it is, you should contact your bank (if necessary) and make sure the steps are in place to stop you getting into trouble because of it. Under no means should anyone send any BTC to that address.

Anything coming from "sharingservices@aol.com" is pure and utter bullshit, and should get sent directly to /dev/null by any and all mail servers and relays.

Trust me, it's not true, they claim to have everything from data from Ashley Madison to whatever site gets hacked tomorrow. Seriously, send it back to aol_phish@abuse.aol.com and include the full headers - I can't believe they let this asshat continue this extortion scam, it's over a week old.  :P

Aol is the favorite email service of extorters. Its security parameters stay the same for over a decade.

Someone else reported it too here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1259678.0, And you should contact your local cyber crime division and let them know about this. You can read more suggestions on the same topic in that thread.

Don't pay them anything, there is no way to know whether they have any information or not in the first place and even if they do, there is no promise that they won't come back again and ask for more and they still might make the information public even after receiving the ransom.

Don't reply to them, just store the email as proof and report it to the local authorities is my suggestion.

If they are seriously wanting to scam, they should at least tell you in the email about some info they got form you.
just leave them alone and never reply to it.

This is correct!  :D

I also got this letter and simply reported. It was an obvious extortion letter as it was blindly sent to a giant list. I never shared any of my personal info on patreon in the first place.