this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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If someone online doesn’t know my identity, can they still blackmail me with sextortion (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago by Newstuffforme@thelemmy.club to c/scams@lemmy.one
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I’ve been looking around on dating sites and similar apps and I’m trying to be careful about sextortion scams. To reduce risk, I’m using a prepaid phone that I bought with cash, and I set up a new Gmail account that isn’t connected to any of my personal information. The phone hasn’t been connected to my home Wi-Fi and there are no contacts, address, or credit card tied to anything. My question is: if I ended up talking to someone who turned out to be a bot or a sextortion scammer and I sent private photos or did a video chat, what could they realistically do with that if they don’t know who I am? If they don’t have my real name, social media, or contacts, is there still a way they could track me down or actually blackmail me? Or would they mostly just try to scare me into paying? Just trying to understand what the real risks are before I do anything stupid.

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[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 months ago

They can threaten you with anything. Follow through may be more difficult, but it's easy for them to just post anything you send them online for everyone.

Worth noting if you have an Android phone it doesn't matter that you didn't connect to your home WiFi. Google probably already knows where that phone lives, and your carrier definitely does. It is therefore theoretically possible for an attacker to socially engineer that information (probably from your carrier) and use it, but that will cost more money then they get.

Easiest way to not get got is to not send photos you don't want your grandparents or parents seeing to people on apps. If you want them to have photos meet up with them in real life first and exchange pics in person.