Man claims he was blackmailed after visiting porn website


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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — A Cottonwood Heights man learned a lesson about visiting porn websites in a unique way. The man says he got scammed after some online surfing and police are now involved.

The man was surfing a porn site, and then went on to a Skype session with a woman that ultimately ended with the alleged extortion.

In a case that even makes police blush, this guy got himself into a compromised position on Skype.

"He received an instant message on his computer and he was told that the video was recorded," said Cottonwood Heights police, Sgt. Dan Bartlett.

Cops say the man believes that he was contacted and scammed by the people behind the porn site. They told him they had his information and his Facebook page.

"They knew his family, knew his friends and were going to send that video to them unless he signed up for a bunch of adult websites at cost on his credit card," Bartlett said.

Frantic, the man told police he signed up for as many of the sites as he could and he racked up $150 in charges before he maxed out his credit card.

"He's afraid," Bartlett said. "He's afraid that they'll keep asking for money and keep trying to extort money out of him."

Police acknowledged elements of the crime are nothing new, but the combination of all of them was unique.

"It's new, it's unique," Bartlett said. "I haven't seen it before. There are a couple lessons to be learned here. One is be careful what you're doing on the internet, and two is watch out for being scammed."

Police were able to track the Skype number to a place in Arkansas, but they couldn't verify if that was the real number. They think the number could have been generated by a computer program. Police say these cases are tough to track down.

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Andrew Adams

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