(Radio Iowa) – The Better Business Bureau is warning about online criminals who are threatening to expose people’s alleged shady internet habits.
Bureau spokesperson Lisa Schiller says they’re tracking a type of “sextortion” blackmail scam where con artists will claim they have evidence of you watching porn. Schiller says the scammer will claim they’ve accessed the websites you visit, and they’ll threaten to send embarrassing images or videos to your contacts, if payment isn’t made.
Schiller says these scams can be effective because no one wants to talk about this, much less if they’ve fallen for it. Schiller says this tracks along with other scams like the I-R-S or warrant scams, where callers try to scare you into immediate action. If you get one of these calls, she says to simply hang up.
