Tools learned during first term

Online safety tips

There are a lot of cases of extortionist calls all over the world. Every day, extortionists and scammers call random people around the world saying that they have kidnapped e.g. his/her parent, or that he/she is going to be killed if he/she doesn't give them a big amount of money. There are a lot of stories, and most of them are not true! By the way, lots of people are called by an extortionist and still fall into their trap. That's the reason we want to give some tips, to avoid that kind of situations, and have more safety.

Tips:

If you receive a suspicious call, be careful. It might be an extortionist. You must be really careful with the things you say.

Here some things you should remember (if it is a kidnapping extortion):

• Stay calm. if you’re being called from an extortionist, you must take it with calm. If not, you will give them information and that’s not the idea. Stay calm and think what you’re going to say.
• Check if what they are saying is true. If you’re with someone, at the moment when they call you, make that he/she makes sure that e.g. your son, is ok.  If you are alone try to get information about it (with some questions, for example), but without telling them any data about you (or of someone).

Here is an image with some information about what to answer to some common question extortionist can make:

Extortion calls are really dangerous, because they can steal everything you have in a few minutes and with a few questions, without you noticing that they are doing it. There are different kinds of extortion calls. One of these, is really common. It is: kidnapping extortion. It’s when they tell you, that they have someone of your family/friends. You have to pay an amount of money to save him/her, and if you don’t do it, they will kill him/her.

Another kind of extortion call, is the “you won the lottery!” extortion. There, they call you and tell you that you won the lottery. They ask you some information about you, e.g. to transfer that money to your bank account. If you give them that data, you will lose all your money, and yes, you didn’t won the lottery. Another one, (and it’s really similar to the last kind of extortion) is when they call you, and ask you for example for update your data. LIke we said before, if you give them that information, you will fall on their trap, and that’s not the idea.

And the last one, (really similar to the first type of extortion) is when someone calls you and says that you’re being watched. There the “unknown” extortionist tries to get money from you, telling that if you don’t do it, you will be killed. For all this things, we made some tips, and created an image with some explanations, with things you may do if an extortionist calls you.

Here we leave you a real story, from a friend of us, who was called by an extortionist:

Ones a friend of us, who was 16, was in her holidays in the United States. She was called by an extortionist who said: ‘I have got your daughter, if you want her to stay alive you must bring $5.000 to the Central Park. Leave the bag with the money on the Bow Bridge at 4:00 a.m. and leave.’ To this our friend answered: ‘OK, wait a sec’, I’ll tell my mum’. After this she finished the call.

Here is a video that explains how to block calls:

Thanks for reading!