DATCP Warns of Extortion Emails

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) is alerting the public that it has received an increased number of complaints and reports concerning extortion attempts sent by email. You should know how to respond if and when you are faced with an extortion attempt.

The messages in question falsely claim that the sender has obtained private and potentially damaging video recordings, or other personal information about you. The scammers often include some accurate information about you to make their claims more believable, such as your home address and a Google Maps photo of your house. The tone of the messages may imply the scammer has been watching you closely, and for a long time.

The scammer will often claim you have visited unsafe websites and explain that this is how they first obtained access to your cellular phone or computer. The scammer may also claim they can remotely access your webcams and phone cameras to watch and record video of them at any time. Finally, the scammer threatens to share this private and embarrassing information with your colleagues, family, and friends unless their demands are met.

The scammers typically request payment through cryptocurrency, which can be difficult to trace by banks or government agencies and can be impossible to recover after it is sent. Yous can expect these emails to communicate a sense of urgency, and they will likely be asked to pay up quickly or risk having the private information released very soon.

If you receive a message like this, you should follow these steps:

Do not panic. It is unlikely the scammer truly has compromising video. Ignore the message. Do not call any phone number listed in the messages, click on any links, or open any attachments.

Never send money. In addition to cryptocurrency, scammers commonly ask for payment to be made through gift cards, cash, or a wire transfer.

And, change your password if the scammer references having it. If a password is reused for multiple accounts, change it on all of them. New, unique passwords should be used for separate accounts to prevent the scammer from fraudulently accessing multiple accounts with a single password.

Report extortion attempts to DATCP, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov, the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov, and if the message was sent to your work account, to your employer’s technology department.

For more information and consumer protection resources or to file a complaint, visit DATCP’s Consumer Protection webpage at ConsumerProtection.wi.gov or contact the Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-422-7128.