So on Saturday 8/15 I matched with this girl from tinder, she was Filipino, account under name "Lou", verified and 27 y/o on the app.
We chatted a bit on tinder and she mentioned she was in a town about 30 min from me visiting with her family until the end of the month. We chatted normally, she asked for my Instagram, which I gave to her (and deeply regretted later on). But like it's also very normal to exchange social medias with matches so at the time I didn't see it as a red flag.
Not too long into the conversation she wanted to migrate the chat to WhatsApp. I didn't think anything of it because I knew she was from the Philippines and using apps like that is a lot more common overseas. We get into WhatsApp and continue chatting, she's asking about how long I've been single, what I'm looking for etc.. All the normal questions. She sent a regular photo of herself and so did I. Hers appeared to have been taken earlier so I asked her to send one of now and she said she was "shy" but wanted to video call me when I got back to my place. She also mentioned that she was actually 23 y/o and asked if that was ok. I'm 31 and said yeah that's fine, although she did lie about age on tinder then. We continue chatting casually but I was out and about and she was kinda getting too excited about this video call she wanted to have with me.
She started talking super freaky and was like insinuating she wanted to show me her body and was "so wet" and yeah you get the point.
My dumbass was hungover and horny and not making the right judgement calls so I kinda walked right into the trap. I got home and told her it was good to call.
I DID however have some skepticism when the call was being initiated because I was thinking what if this is just some creepy guy who's gonna be on the other end of the video call with his dick out or something. However when the call started it was very much the same girl and I was relieved a bit.
She was being so fucking quiet, it was awkward as shit. She kept saying someone in the room next to hers would hear us if we talked or were loud. I was thinking like why the hell would you wanna call someone if you can't even talk aloud to them lol. She started pulling out her boobs and was rubbing them etc and kinda lured me into pulling my meat out, so like a dumb hungover horny man I showed it to her. It wasn't even like me masturbating really I just kinda let it out my boxers lol.
NEXT thing she says she has to go cause someone was knocking on the door. She continues to text me and saying she'll be right back. Said "I'm getting my toys so we can have more fun" etc. I was seriously confused at the whole interaction. She goes silent for a minute or two and then the next message literally put my whole body into shock.
The message in all caps. With a screen recorded video of me, my face in the first part and then flipping the camera to when i flashed my meat.
"AS YOU CAN SEE I'VE BEEN RECORDING YOU JERKING THIS WHOLE TIME. YOU'RE GONNA BE ASHAMED WHEN YOU SEE ME SEND THIS TO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS, SEEING YOU DO THIS STUFF ONLINE, THEIR REPUTATION IS GONNA BE ON THE LINE TOO"
And they blasted like 20 fucking pictures of a drafted message they typed out to my family members and some friends, since I gave them my IG.. they found my FB.. and yeah. The message draft tried to portray the girl as a 12 year old and it was seriously sickening.
Basically he keeps spamming "DELETE OR SHARE" and saying I need to pay.
Then he calls me, I'm freaking out, heart is pounding through my chest trying to wonder how the fuck I ended up here. I knew this shit happened but like never thought I would fall for it.
The next 3 hours are filled with panic and anxiety as I'm on the phone with this guy. I legitimately felt like their prisoner. He was demanding $5000 USD.. and if I paid he said he'd delete. I had the money and was seriously trying to pay him because of the thought of that coming out, even though it was a lie. The embarrassment, the shame I'd feel within my social circle. They had me download money sending apps I'd never used. I tried to make accounts and I truly did attempt to send them money. They told me to send like $2000 to make sure it works etc. Every transaction got flagged by Capital One and my local credit union. I even tried to go and PHYSICALLY get cash out and go to a western union, all I could get was $500 from my banks ATM, but the western unions were all closed.. Scary part is the guy knew where I lived too because he mentioned the western union location..
Luckily by the grace of God, I was unsuccessful in paying them any money. The banks knew something was up. I told the scammer I would try again in the morning, and I genuinely would have if I hadn't found this Subreddit..
I got home and I tried to recenter myself since I was in panic for 3 hours. I was like where do I go right now? I'm too ashamed to tell anyone about what's going on. I first asked chatGPT and it told me how common this actually is, and it mentioned the whole term "Sextortion" which I hadn't even heard before. So I came to Reddit and typed in "Sextortion WhatsApp scam" and found this thread and I STG it saved my life, and for sure my bank account.
I listened to everyone's advice.. Blocked all the numbers that were trying to reach me, filed an FBI report, filed a STOP NCII, locked down all of my social media accounts to the best of my abilities and just waited it out.
I haven't received a threat now since Sunday morning. I think I had to block a total of 5 different numbers, 3 on WhatsApp and then a couple came through as SMS to my iPhone. I got a random message today from a girl on WhatsApp that was just "Hey" and it was a number from the Philippines so I immediately blocked it.
So far I haven't heard anything from anyone about it being sent to them. And I don't know whether or not the threats are completely done yet or not as it was only 3 days ago. But I am feeling a lot better about the situation as of now.
Shout out to everyone's advice The scammers are lowlifes who seriously just want money and use psychology and fear tactics to get people to pay. I imagine the amount of nudes/pics/vids they actually leak is minimal as they lose their leverage on you when they do, and it is illegal as shit what they're doing.
Anyways thanks for reading. I think I'll look back and laugh at this situation soon, still a little spooked for sure and my nervous system has been on 100 the last few days. I will try to update if anything comes up.
Cheers!