FTC Warns of Rise in Bitcoin Blackmail Scams Targeting Cheating Husbands

[oksgvardukraine2018]

FTC Warns of Rise in Bitcoin Blackmail Scams Targeting Cheating Husbands
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is attempting to combat bitcoin blackmail scams by offering consumers advice through its website.

In a bulletin published on Aug. 21, the FTC Division of Consumer and Business Education posted a sample quote from a typical BTC blackmail scam:

“I know about the secret you are keeping from your wife and everyone else. You can ignore this letter, or pay me a $8600 confidentiality fee in Bitcoin.”

Notably, the sample doesn’t specify the nature of the “secret”, which is a common tactic employed by scammers who use sweeping generalisations in the hopes that someone’s guilty conscience will get the better of them and cause them to panic and pay up, unaware that the scammer has just sent out hundreds or thousands of such emails indiscriminately.

In January CCN reported a similar scam targeting victims with paper mail through the U.S. Postal Service. The scammer or scammers accused their many targets of having extramarital affairs, hoping that a few people coincidentally guilty of infidelity would send them bitcoin to “keep quiet.” As CCN reported, the scammers may have been aware that an estimated one in five spouses have committed infidelity at some point.
https://www.ccn.com/ftc-warns-of-rise-in-bitcoin-blackmail-scams-targeting-cheating-husbands/

[Rawted]

Cheaters deserve to pay a lot more than $8600, but this would target anyone keeping a secret from their family, friends or wife. This does not necessarily target cheaters, it targets anyone keeping something from loved ones (for good or bad reasons), which is not right.
If it was only targeting cheaters, I would label it "scamming the scammer", but in light of the above, sadly this is not the case.

Either way, if you are an honest person, in this situation you would not be scammed.

Would this not also confirm who is unfaithful and who is not? Would this not lead to further extortion if they were able to see who ignored and who paid?

Very interesting read, thank you.

[jaydenbox]

Lol this is crazy, before it was on people watching porn, now on people "cheating", people do really find ways to manipulate and scam, just crazy what some people are able to do.