Nasty Type Of Phisihng Scam

[Palustris]

Had an Email threatening to send details of my supposed visits to Porn sites and images taken from our web camera showing me misbehaving whilst watching said porn. Pay up or else.
Sent it to Action Fraud. Changed all our Passwords. Ran every anti virus program we could find. Machine is supposedly clean.
Couple of small problems. a. Never been on a porn site. b. Don't have a Web cam. c. Wouldn't care if they did send details to any contact as that Email is only used by family who would not believe it anyway. They know me!
BUT. It certainly would put the wind up a lot of people. Very nasty.

[Jackdaw33]

Now that is nasty. Not just a scam but blatant blackmail. as you say, there are many innocent people who may have accidentally stumbled on such sites.

[Mamyalynne]

They really don't care how many people they may upset, wicked it is.

[Paigntonian]

Probably being a little lazy but what's the address for Action Fraud? TIA.

[Mamyalynne]

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/contact-us#:~:text=You%20can%20report%20fraud%20or,by%20calling%200300%20123%202040.

[Togo]

The email providers must know, by now, where this pervasive and malign traffic is generated. Why do they not prevent it? As providers they must have the facility to recognise the source and insist on a valid sender's identity. Perhaps it suits them not to stop the vile trash.

[ichkeria]

It’s a scam.
Rather a pathetic one of it’s along the lines of the ones I and many others have had:
“We know your password”
Except you don’t because that’s not it ;-)

[david small]

To make all that effort to avoid working shows plainly the degenerate mindset of these sorry individuals. They should be exposed as what they are, blackmailing lowlife.
Or, would that infringe their sub-human rights.

[Peter Pedant]

well done for bucking it

[ichkeria]

Email providers already do a pretty good job of harvesting spam.
Almost too good as I’ve lost proper emails before now.
Every so often it’s worth checking the spam folders for this junk and non junk

[barry1010]

You didn't need to change your passwords but it is always a good thing to change them regularly.
These horrible scammers never had your passwords or infected your pc with a virus- they just sent you a horrible email, they sent them to millions of others, too.

[woofgang]

It is wicked but its not new. I have had that a couple of times, also the one that says we have taken over your computer and will put porn on it and tell the police. In both cases it seems to have been scattergun emails and not directed at me ie email not stolen.

[Jackdaw33]

What they forget is that porn on your computer per se is not illegal, unless it involves children.

[Peter Pedant]

blimey i seem to be missing out on life

[ichkeria]

Yes but no one wants evidence of ones guilty browsing habits sent to ones friends and family. Illegal or legal :-)

So that’s the “threat”
Pretty scattergun, crude and amateurish tho

[tomus42]

As with all these things, it's a numbers game. Send this mail to enough people and a proportion will always pay up. It wouldn't continue otherwise.

[andy-hughes]

As you say to us, a numbers game - if you hit ten thousand strangers, and one per cent bite, you are in business.

Illegal and immoral business, but making money nonetheless.

[andy-hughes]

That should be 'tomus' not 'to us'.

[tiggerblue10]

I had a similar email telling a couple of years ago me they'd caught me doing inappropriate stuff on my webcam and also wrote my actual password in the text.

I don't have a webcam and the password they wrote was an old one from several years ago. I still changed my password after I reported it.

[roopower]

Nasty. Thats a new one to me and it may catch some people out.

[roslyn251254]

how do they know your password?