DETROIT – Ashlee Baracy was targeted by an aggressive scam, and she wasn’t the only one here at Local 4 News!
Luckily, Ashlee didn’t fall for it, but she said it seemed very real at first. They spelled her name correctly and included her address.
“It was a PDF file attached to the email,” Ashlee said. “So I click on that because the PDF was called, ‘Ashlee.’ It was a full page threatening letter with my address on it, saying that it had videos of me doing -- I don’t want to say incriminating things, but unflattering things, should we say? And that if I did not pay them $2,000 via bitcoin that they were going to send these videos to all the contacts in my phone.”
The first sign that it wasn’t legit: Ashlee noticed the picture they included of her house was actually of the neighbor’s house across the street. It appeared to have been taken from Google Maps.
She also knew that there was no nefarious activity to film.
“I have two little kids at home that I can’t go anywhere without them attached to my leg,” Ashlee said. “I know that they don’t have those videos, but my first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a threatening email of someone that knows my address.’”
Hank said scammers often try to target people using their emotions. Ashlee said the fact that they sent her home address is what originally caught her attention.
They talked about the scam and others who have been targeted -- check out the video below to listen to the entire discussion.