Not all bitcoin sextortion attempts are occurring over email right now. Reports of a highly customized blackmail letter received in the mail and claiming to have “evidence” of a “secret you are keeping from your wife” and demanding payment in bitcoin in order not to tell, started coming in late 2017 and continue today. Krebs on Security blogged about this scam in January. Back then the amount demanded was around $2,500. In May typical reports had risen to around $8,500. Today the letters are demanding as much as $15,500.

Reported blackmail letter bitcoin addresses that included demand amount

Scam Address	Reported Date	Demand Amount ($ USD)
1AerHTezypgLJHpcDNMd6mdPKJPeQWxPhD	21 Nov 17	2500
14i82QBptbM11siMo3i5gkv9RpMmN843X5	5 Jan 18	3600
17JTXjM2goxynTe19gzi48p336VmZKqoBD	26 Apr 18	8600
1HuPqHpdkZBSpGGL6gMCfCv4VumQvcwvQm	27 Apr 18	8500
19fkuKV4TgR9bHK7ioCfEJJyd74ARfhYDX	12 May 18	8800
1PmvKMqrufyv4ysmhjToDvGWdXHBWpHS6R	17 July 18	15100
15tTXnvpwmz6cEoUb8dQvmrTe4NDN1zpzY	13 Jul 18	8100
17qQ5q6gBETZvKihLpqa4oMZKoXCQdVi6q	2 Aug 18	15500
193e5vrqEooFMX6cq5DCdBRv1N7igjChY9	7 Aug 18	9150

However, the scammers may have a problem. It appears not enough people are falling for their ploy. None of the bitcoin addresses reported to BitcoinWhosWho.com have received a payment. Could the reason for the price increase be precisely because no one is paying? Is it better to charge more if only a few are going to fall for it anyway?

Sample Text of Letter

Hello [your first name], I’m going to cut to the chase. My name is [varies] and I know about the secret you are keeping from your wife and everyone else. More importantly, I have evidence of what you have been hiding. I won’t go into the specifics here in case your wife intercepts this, but you know what I am talking about.

You don’t know me personally and nobody hired me to look into you. Nor did I go out looking to burn you. It is just your bad luck that I stumbled across your misadventures while working a job around [your town]. I then put in more time than I probably should have looking into your life. Frankly, I am ready to forget all about you and let you get on with your life. And I am going to give you two options that will accomplish that very thing. Those two options are to either ignore this letter, or simply pay me [USD$XXX]. Let’s examine those two options in more detail.

The rest describes further the options and supposed consequences and then provides a page of details about how to buy bitcoin on LocalBitcoins.com.

If you were about to fall for this until you found this blog post, a little consideration: 1MX96CwmUJABMwAiU4PjSxjm1Avr2cDHPd

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