FTC Warns of Rise in Bitcoin Blackmail Scams Targeting Cheating HusbandsThe 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/
