A Bloomington, Minnesota, man has fallen victim to a lurid Facebook scam that involved he (and his wife) getting blackmailed with sexually explicit images of himself.

The con started simply enough: the man received a Facebook friend request from a woman he didn’t know calling herself “Dayana Joyce Mote.” However, despite the fact that the man didn’t know the mysterious woman, they soon began chatting on Facebook Messenger, and things quickly escalated to a sexual video chat. During the chat, the man allegedly began to masturbate, and the woman calling herself Mote took screenshots.

Soon, a Facebook profile was allegedly created with the man’s first name and the word “jerking” as the last name, and all the screenshots from the Facebook chat. The scammer then sent the man another message and said she would add all of his family and friends with the X-rated account if he did not give her $1,200. He didn’t give in to her demands, and according to the warrant for “Mote”’s arrest, his friends and family soon began calling him about the profile. “Mote” also reached out to the man’s wife on Facebook for the $1,200. Local police are currently trying to catch the woman responsible, but the damage has certainly been done to the victim’s reputation.

 

“If she’s doing it to him, she’s probably doing it to a number of other folks. And to get law enforcement interested is a challenge because it’s a difficult thing to track down,” said attorney Bruce Rivers. “Five years ago, never. Now almost every day I get some call about this.”

 

This may be an extreme example, but it’s still indicative of why it’s simply not a good idea to accept friend requests from strangers.