Just got a beaut...
Email claims to have captured me in a compromising video by hacking my webcam and will send it to everyone in my addressbook unless I send $1900 to his bitcoin account. Includes an old password of mine as 'proof'.
As if... Did a little research and apparently four people have already fallen for this. The Bitcoin account was flagged as fraudulent: https://bitcoinwhoswho.com/address/1JHwenDp9A98XdjfYkHKyiE3R99Q72K9X4
Came through an MS Outlook.com server, so I reported it to their abuse and legal and offered to assist in any prosection. Let's see how far that goes (not expecting much).
Be careful out there folks...
"However, I would not do anything to engage these people in any way, not even jokingly, because you validate youe existence and you don't know what they'll do as a response."
@MarkJFine, donkeys ago there was a guy in the UK who actually engaged with scammers and tried to scam them back. He kept a hilarious website with email exchanges.
I agree with you, though, and think it's best left to the law to deal with these people.
@maratsade wrote:
I agree with you, though, and think it's best left to the law to deal with these people.
Yup. Not worth the effort nor the risk. You know what they say about playing with fire.
Best to play invisible with these guys. That way they don't know that you exist, nor what you're doing.