Several ABC11 viewers shared with ABC11 Troubleshooter an email they got that has the viewer's address a picture of their home and other personal information. The email starts by stating, "I suggest you read this message carefully."
The email says, "We're talking about something serious and I ain't playing games." The email claims to have caught the individual doing bad things after spyware was placed on their phone, threatening to release this content to their phone contacts and social media circle. Alyssa Parker with the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Carolinas warns that people should not act if they receive this email, as it is a scam. "If anything comes to you in a threatening manner it's usually a red flag, not something legitimate," Parker said.
Zulfikar Ramzan with Aura, a company that protects against identity theft, agrees with Parker, adding that engaging with these emails could put someone in an even worse position. "I would tell the average consumer just don't engage. They probably don't have your data, and even if you were to give them any money, the odds are, they wouldn't stop, they would continue to come after you and blackmail you," Ramzan said.
The email includes a QR code and states to prevent anything from being shared with your contacts, you can click the Bitcoin QR code and pay $2000. Parker adds, "Anyone can create a QR code and unfortunately scammers are going to do that and they are going to use it in a very threatening manner."
Ramzan says scammers are getting access to information that includes pictures of people's homes, exact addresses, and personal information sometimes including social security numbers due to not only certain information being public information, but also due to the mass data breaches. "We had this massive data breach of 2.7 billion with the B records that were stolen in the national public database. That information is now a variable gold mine, for scammers and scammers have coupled that data with what they can find about you through other sites," Ramzan said.
Ramzan also said that it is not hard for scammers to take public information about people and combine that with information from the dark web to scam them. He adds, "They can be easily accessed, and when you combine all that together, put a picture of your house from Google Maps and a few other things. You can make quite a convincing case for the average consumer that they've been compromised, and that's perfect fodder for blackmail.
It is important to put measures in place to protect personal information. You can go to websites that post public information and request to be removed. If you do get a letter or email stating you were part of a data breach, and you're offered free credit and identity monitoring, take advantage of it. You can also buy identity theft protection or insurance.
"Inevitably your data will get compromised, we will become a victim, and when that happens, having insurance in place allows you to essentially do a better job of managing and mitigating the financial impact of that loss," Ramzan said.
If you are a victim of identity theft, it's key to take action right away. File a police report and check your credit report, you can still do that for free at annualcreditreport.com. If anything looks suspicious report the fraud.