WEST SENECA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Charlie Sheehan of West Seneca told me he was disturbed after opening an email recently from someone claiming to have inappropriate videos and screenshots of him.
The sender was threatening to release it all unless Sheehan sent him $2,000.
"It was basically saying you've been clicking on like adult links and adult content and we have proof of you doing that. It's very disturbing. None of this is true mind you. None of it's true," Sheehan said.
Sheehan said one of the most disturbing parts, the sender claimed to be watching him using spyware and even included a picture of his house and a QR code.
Sheehan went straight to the police who said they get complaints about scams like this all the time.
West Seneca Police Captain James Unger said police are constantly warning the public about scams.
"Try to explain to them that if anyone asks for anything that you feel is out of the ordinary, especially payments in Bitcoin or gift cards or cash stuffed into an envelope....assume it's a scam," said Unger.
He also reminds you to never give out personal information, especially your social security number.
"These criminals are kind of savvy and once that payment is gone unfortunately, it's very hard for us to recover," explained Captain Unger.
He also said it's nearly impossible to track down the people behind these scams.
Cyber Security Expert Arun Vishwanath told me that scams like this are getting more common.
"A person, a bad guy, a hacker, probably somebody oversees putting together a bunch of publicly available information and trying to scare you into paying the money," explained Vishwanath. "It works quite a lot. There's been a 140-percent increase in such attacks in the last year."
Vishwanath said scammers are targeting our kids through video games and social media.
"Right now what we've been seeing is an increase targeting of minor boys where a lot of them seem to be falling victim to it," said Vishwanath.
While Sheehan, who works in IT knew right away it was a scam, he wants others to be on alert so they don't fall victim.
"It's very threatening. They want you to make a drastic action and they're all doing this just to get money," said Sheehan.
