SEXTORTION SCAM WARNING – URGENT – 2024

The SCARS Institute Magazine about Scam Victims-Survivors, Scams, Fraud & Cybercrime

Published: 1/13/24
Modified: 1/13/24
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SEXTORTION SCAM WARNING – URGENT – 2024

Very High Sextortion Scam Risk Targeting Teen Victims

Authors:
• SCARS Editorial Team – Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
• Portions from Paul Raffile, Teleo, Intel Analyst | Investigator | Security Strategy | Digital Risk | OSINT

Article Abstract

This article details an urgent Sextortion Scam Warning that has the potential to affect millions more teens in the coming weeks. Please help – read, respond and share, and report.

♦♦♦ Sextortion Scam Warning! We Need Your Help! We Need You To Report The Wizz App On The Google App Store And In The Apple iTunes Store, Then Report It To The FTC!

This Is Catastrophic And It Is Happening Right Under Our Noses!

TALK TO YOUR TEENS ABOUT SCAMS AND SPECIFICALLY ABOUT SEXTORTION SCAMS!

♦ There will be a nationwide child exploitation emergency on Monday, January 15th, unless you can urgently help.

Scam Warning: The ‘Wizz’ app has a Massive Sextortion Problem.

JUST LOOK AT THE PHOTOS BELOW FOR WHAT IS HAPPENING

• Tens of thousands of kids, mostly boys, are being systematically scammed by criminals into taking nude photos, while the criminal screenshots/copies all their Instagram followers. Immediately following, then blackmail starts, threatening to leak the nude pics to all the victim’s family and friends unless a ransom is paid.

• This specific crime, financial sextortion, began to increase exponentially 18 months ago, in part due to Wizz’s growth and easily circumventable safety features connecting criminals to kids, with ineffective safeguards.

• At least 21 kids have died by suicide in these past 18 months as a direct result of financial sextortion – but this is just what has been reported – no one knows the real values. This is a 20,000% increase since 2019

• In a Wizz poll of 500 English-speaking Wizz users, 40% said they had been blackmailed on the platform–far more than any other platform we know of. Note that a supermajority (77%) of these victims were minors under 18.

• Since summer, Wizz is now the the #3 platform for incidents of sextortion reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, behind only Instagram and Snapchat. Wizz is so tiny compared to Insta and Snap, meaning that sextortion is rampant and has saturated Wizz beyond control.

• To further measure the prevalence of sextortion targeting minors on Wizz, the team of analysts at TENEO created 10 experimental profiles representing young males across the U.S. in a mix of cities and rural areas. All 10 of these accounts were targeted by sextortion criminals during their first 48 hours on the app.

Urgent Monday January 15, 2024 Scam Warning

⚠️⚠️⚠️ On Monday, January 15th, Wizz is hosting its first-ever weeklong “Influencer House” to expand its reach in the United States. This will cause a tsunami of new sextortion victims who will fall for carefully laid traps set by criminals on Wizz.

Report this NOW!

We urgently need Apple and Google to enforce their App Store policies and remove Wizz from the App Store. It unquestionably poses an imminent risk of harm to children.

♦ THE WAY TO DO THIS IS GO TO YOUR PHONE’S APP STORE, SEARCH FOR WIZZ AND LEAVE A VERY BAD ONE-STAR REVIEW WARNING ABOUT THE VERY HIGH RISKS OF SCAMMERS ON THIS APP!

Beyond the rampant sextortion on their platform, Wizz actively serves unskippable pornographic ads to minors. This is a clear violation of App Store Policy and Google Play policy and should immediately trigger a takedown for review.

♦ THE WAY TO REPORT THIS IS GO TO THE FTC WEBSITE AND REPORT WIZZ FOR BOTH SEXTORTION SCAMS AND VIOLATIONS OF COPPA (CHILDREN’S ONLINE PRIVACY & PROTECTION ACT) – GO HERE TO REPORT: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/?orgcode=SCARS

YOU CAN QUOTE THIS WHEN REPORTING TO THE FTC: App Store policy 2.5.18 “Ads displayed in an app must be appropriate for the app’s age rating, allow the user to see all information used to target them for that ad (without requiring the user to leave the app)…Apps that contain ads must also include the ability for users to report any inappropriate or age-inappropriate ads.”) & See Google Developer Policy on “Inappropriate Ads”