AUSTRALIA—If the reports are true, the alleged extortion of a Melbourne man by a cam model may be the tip of the iceberg in terms of a scam that Brisbane police say is common and may have ensnared numerous men around the world. According to the Herald Sun, the scam involves the posting of videos to dozens of porn sites of supposedly private web cam sessions that are meant to shame the men into paying to have them taken down. Adding injury to injury, the posted videos contain the real name and address of the hapless chaps.
The Sun article recounts the misfortune of John, 38, a fellow who admits that his mental health issues led him to seek out women on the internet instead of attempting to connect with them offline. After signing up for several web cam sites, where John said he wasted a lot of money on women he said were not "legitimate," he had the misfortune of meeting a woman online who was supposedly from the Philippines who came across very differently from the others.
"John said the woman appealed to him because she didn't ask him to verify himself and had encouraged normal conversation," reported the Sun, which quotes him as saying, "She said she was poor and a student and I felt bad for her."
Unlike the others, he said, this woman didn't ask for money before getting to know him. She even "initiated conversation of a more private nature," as if she too were really looking to establish a real connection with him.
"John said he had very private webcam moments with the woman,," reported the Sun, "but said she had never had a discussion with him about money at that point." He thought they were having "a bit of a relationship."
He admitted to offering the woman money to pay for university tuition and food. That's when "the parameters changed," he said.
According to the Sun, "When John stopped paying, he said the woman sent him nasty threatening emails, demanding more money, or she would post his video to the internet."
It was then, of course, that he realized that the supposedly private and unrecorded cam sessions they had shared were in fact on video. At first, though, he didn't believe her threats to post them online and stopped responding to her demands for more money.
She wasn't bluffing. John soon learned that the woman had posted videos showing his face to dozens of porn sites, and to make matters worse, the videos included his real name and address.
"It nearly destroyed me,'' he said. "To have that most personal of things out there, it just devastated me."
John also claims that in the aftermath of his experience, men from countries around the world have contacted him to say they too have fallen victim to the same scam. "I couldn't believe how many people are being scammed like this," he said.
According to Detective Superintendent Brian Hay from the Corporate Crime Group in Brisbane, John is most certainly not alone. "Because of the embarrassment associated with it, a lot of people aren't reporting it to police," he said. "It's extremely intrusive and it's really difficult for these poor people who have taken someone's trust on board and surrendered their trust, and to have it turned on them like that is horrible."
Victims, he said, need to contact police even if they are afraid of being "outed."
"At least if we can actually get some information and garner some intelligence," he said, "we can actually share that with the law enforcement agencies where these crooks are based.''
Hay said Aussies (and presumably others) looking for more information about online scams can visit scamwatch.gov.au.
