Beware of online sex racket, don't accept video chat from strangers
Agartala, Feb 13: Beware! If an unknown Facebook friend asks for your whatsapp number and shows interest for video chat with sexual appeal then control yourself, it's a trap of the fraudsters to make you a victim of blackmail.
A single mistake-- receiving video call on whatsapp or Facebook Messenger from any unknown person-- is enough to land someone to a nightmare. It is a racket working from various parts of the country to blackmail people and collect money.
According to police, the fraudsters first send friend requests on Facebook from fake profiles, mostly with pictures of attractive girls. Once the friend request is accepted, they start chatting in a normal way and at a point of time they ask for sharing whatsapp number for video chat.
Before they start the next process, they take screenshots of Facebook friend list or the friends who commented or liked recently.
Next, they make video call on whatsapp or otherwise and once the call is received, before you say anything, they start sex chat and record the screen.
It is a matter of a few seconds. As the face of the person at the receiving end has already been recorded, he/she is now ready to become a victim of the trap despite denial to go for sex chat.
As soon as the video chat ends, they start sending screenshots or video chats (sometimes doctored with sexual contents) with a tune of threat that they will share the screenshots and the videos to social media, with a solid caption to make it viral.
Sometimes, they also threaten to send the screenshots or videos to the friends of the person on Facebook. Now, when the victim requests the fraudster to delete the contents or stay away from sending them to others, he/she receives a demand for money and that too for immediate payment.
This is the most common process of the online sex rackets through which they pressurize a person to pay money for no reason, police said.
To stay away from such cyber criminals, police appealed to the citizens, mostly the smartphone users, for not accepting friend request or video chat from any unknown person.
In case of any suspicious activity, the users need to report the profile to the Facebook authority immediately, police said, adding fhat the thing that could prevent such incidents is public awareness.