The story I'm about to tell is about my horrible experiences with the internet, social media, and dating apps in the past, and at the end of this post I'll give tips and advice so that no one else goes through what I went through back then.
The first time this happened to me on social media was in 2011, when I was using the old Orkut. It's worth remembering that 2011 was Orkut's last year of activity, as its servers were deactivated three years later, in 2014. At that time, Facebook was just beginning to become the famous social network we know today, and it's important to remember that in 2011, Instagram didn't even exist and wasn't under development. I was browsing Orkut on my computer when I received a message from someone who wasn't on my friends list, but who had a mutual friend on the network. Fortunately, the conversation didn't go beyond that until 2015, when I discovered WhatsApp. Of course, it's also worth mentioning that I had already created my first Facebook account after Orkut's servers were deactivated in the country where I was born at the time. Before creating my first WhatsApp account, I created my first Instagram account. I had barely created accounts on those two social media platforms when I received a message request on Facebook from this person. In my complete innocence, I accepted. The conversations flowed, and she started sending nudes in the chat. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All of this happened over the weekend until Monday, between 10:30 and 11:00 AM, when I received a message from a supposed "police officer" who tried to extort money from me. At that moment, I started to feel bad and panicked, so I went to look for help. I ended up at a friend's store, and there was a plainclothes civil police officer there. Seeing my distress, he calmed me down and told me not to worry. Then the police officer who was in the store asked if I had made any deposits, and I said no, because anyone who really knows me in the city finds it extremely difficult to get any money out of me. The police officer then said to just ignore it and just block the profile that's doing this, that's because the civil police officer who was at my friend's store told me that those suspicious profiles belonged to scammers who used this type of online scam to attract victims and extort money, and that I just needed to block those suspicious profiles. After that, I felt relieved and went back to my normal life.
Here are some tips based on my experience for those who like to use apps like Tinder, Happn, Grindr, and others. I just ask that you be very careful when sending photos or videos so you don't get into trouble. Avoid sending nude photos that show intimate parts of the body, as there are many scammers who take advantage of dirty tactics to attract victims and harm them in various ways. See you later... bye.