My son Ben is 23 and he’s a student in Dublin. Last summer he signed up to Tinder and got matched with a girl called Claudia, also in Dublin, who was around the same age. They communicated with each other over a period of about seven weeks, but they didn’t ever meet in person. They were getting on well and, after they’d been chatting on Tinder for a couple of weeks, Claudia said she’d love to know more about him, and suggested they share photos of themselves on Snapchat.
At first, he thought it was a prank, and he told her he didn’t believe her. But then she said, “I want $3,000 and I want it straight away. Here are the bank account details and here’s how you do it.” Immediately he responded, “No way.” And straight away she began sending the video to his closest friends via Instagram Message. It went straight to six or seven of them within minutes.
He sweated in his room for a day, literally locked himself away, and then came out and told me. I was shocked, but tried to comfort him as he was so distressed and all I wanted to do was help him. To be honest, I was so upset and shaken. I know nothing about the different social media platforms or the rules or who’s responsible for what.
I’ll never forget it, she simply said: “Calm down, don’t worry, give me his number, and leave it with me.” Ten seconds later I heard his phone ring. He was in his room, pretty distraught. He said to Nicola, “I’m so embarrassed, how could I be so stupid? Even my mum knows I’m an idiot”. And she said, “Ben, don’t be so hard on yourself. It sounds mad, but this happens all the time.”
Nicola was able to halt the harm and then, once she had reported “Claudia”, Ben got back to her and said, “I’ve reported you, you won’t be getting any money and everything is going to be removed.” Ben was in touch with Claudia for about seven weeks, so she was clearly playing the long game for the money. Nicola said to me, she probably has six or eight or 20 Bens that she’s doing this to at any given time. It’s an industry. Nobody fully understands the platforms, which is how the Claudias of this world get away with it. Ben thought the Snapchats disappearing after ten seconds protected him, but Claudia was way ahead of him, taking screen grabs.
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