ID Thief Turns To Extorting Victim
from the online-crime-changing dept
A single anecdote does not make a trend, but MSNBC is warning people after a story came out about an identity thief who tried to extort his victim, after she successfully blocked his attempts to user her accounts in some online auctions. He started sending her threatening emails with details about her life, asking for $400 to leave her alone (and to give her information on how to protect herself). The fear, in the article, is that now others will resort to this as well. It would seem, however, that this is really a step backwards for ID theft - since it involves actually contacting the victim. In that case, it makes it much easier to track down and capture the criminal. When it's pure identity theft, there's often no way to figure out who the scammer is at all.
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