Paying or staying silent feeds the threat. Cutting contact, saving the evidence, and reporting is what actually shuts it down.
The situation, the move, the outcome.
When a teen is caught in financial sextortion, the offender's whole leverage is panic — pay now or the images go to everyone. The FBI's guidance, built from tens of thousands of cases, is the opposite of what panic suggests: stop all contact, do not pay, do not delete anything, save the usernames and messages, and report. Offenders typically release images whether or not they're paid, and paying usually triggers more demands — so cooperation rarely ends it, while reporting routes the case to investigators who can trace these networks. Between October 2021 and March 2023 the FBI and Homeland Security logged over 13,000 reports of minor sextortion; the cases that resolve are the ones that get reported.
Why it matters beyond one family.
Financial sextortion exploded as a scam aimed mostly at teen boys. The single biggest predictor of harm is silence — a teen too ashamed to tell anyone. Knowing the correct response in advance is what turns a terrifying night into a solvable problem.
How to apply it.
- Tell your teen now, before it happens: if anyone threatens to share images, you will help and they won't be in trouble.
- If it happens, stop contact immediately — don't argue, don't pay, don't delete the evidence.
- Screenshot the account, messages and any payment demands, then report to the FBI and NCMEC.
Concrete next steps.
- Report at tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI, and to NCMEC's CyberTipline at CyberTipline.org.
- Use NCMEC's free Take It Down tool (takeitdown.ncmec.org) to stop known images from spreading.
- Call or text 988 if your teen is in emotional crisis.
Read it for yourself.
- FBI — sextortion: what to do and how to report fbi.gov ↗
- FBI — the financially motivated sextortion threat fbi.gov ↗
- NCMEC — Take It Down service launch missingkids.org ↗
If your teen is being sextorted: do not pay, do not delete anything, and stop all contact with the offender. Save the messages and usernames. Report to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI and to NCMEC's CyberTipline at CyberTipline.org. Use NCMEC's free Take It Down tool (takeitdown.ncmec.org) to stop images from spreading. For emotional crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7).