Bitcoin Blackmail Letter Scam Raising Prices

Blackmail letter
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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3 thoughts on “Bitcoin Blackmail Letter Scam Raising Prices”

  1. I received a scam blackmail letter recently. It was mailed from Nashville, TN, USA. But there was no return address (first red flag). They requested $8,600 via Bit Coin in order to keep quiet and not tell my wife about something they know about me. I have never married. The letter was very well written.
    I was going to report it to the REPORT SCAM link but that looks like it is for people who already have been scammed. I would like to post the bitcoin receiving address, but I don’t want to be filling out all other personal information as I have not been scammed and clearly this letter is being sent to a lot of people, hoping they will be able to scam somebody.

  2. I received an email like the one mentioned, here is the bitcoin address number:
    Here is my BTC wallet 1Jz1Fvn3647Y1dfHxdisyrQ4zE5cGPYQkH – you have to pay 550 usd sum

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