Sextortion Help: What to Do If Someone Is Threatening You

If someone is threatening to share intimate images or videos of you unless you pay or send more, the best immediate steps are: don’t pay, don’t send anything else, and stop replying. Save evidence of the messages and the account, report the account to the platform, and report the crime to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov or ic3.gov. If you are under 18, or the images were taken when you were under 18, NCMEC’s Take It Down tool and CyberTipline can help, and you should tell a trusted adult.

This is a crime, and you are the victim. You haven’t done anything that means you deserve this, and help is available whether you’re a teenager or an adult. The steps below are in the order that usually helps most.

If you’re in danger or thinking about hurting yourself

Sextortion can feel overwhelming, and criminals deliberately make it feel like there’s no way out. There is. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time, day or night. Talking to someone right now is a strong, sensible thing to do.

What sextortion is and how it usually works

Sextortion is when someone threatens to share sexual images or videos of you unless you give them money, more images or something else. It often follows a pattern:

• Someone contacts you on social media, a gaming platform or a dating app, often pretending to be someone around your age and interested in you.
• They move the conversation quickly toward sending intimate photos, sometimes sending fake photos first.
• Once they have an image, their tone changes. They show screenshots of your friends, family or followers and threaten to send the images to them.
• They demand payment, often by gift card, payment app or cryptocurrency, and set short deadlines to create panic.

The FBI has publicly warned about financially motivated sextortion targeting teenage boys in particular, often run by organized groups outside the US. But anyone can be targeted, including adults. Sometimes the images are real; sometimes they are edited or AI-generated. The response is the same either way.

There’s also a mass email version: messages claiming a hacker recorded you through your webcam. Those are almost always bluffs. Our guide to the “you’ve been hacked” email scam explains how to spot them.

Step 1: Don’t pay and don’t send more

It’s natural to think paying will make it stop. In most cases it doesn’t. The FBI’s guidance is not to pay, because payment often leads to more demands rather than an end to the threats. Sending more images only gives them more to threaten you with.

You don’t need to negotiate, explain or apologize. You can simply stop.

Step 2: Save evidence, then stop contact

Before you block anyone, capture what you can. This helps platforms and law enforcement act.

• Screenshot the conversation, including the threats and payment demands.
• Record the account details: username, profile link, display name and any other accounts they used.
• Note payment details they asked you to use, such as a gift card type, payment app username or crypto wallet address.
• Don’t delete your account or the conversation until you have saved evidence and reported it.

Important: don’t forward, save or share the intimate images themselves as part of your evidence, especially if you’re under 18. Screenshot the conversation around them instead. Law enforcement can obtain what they need.

Then stop responding. Block the account after reporting it, or use muting and restriction tools if you want to see whether they post anything, so you can report it quickly.

Step 3: Report the account to the platform

Every major platform, including Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Discord and X, prohibits sextortion and threats to share intimate images. Report the account and the messages using the in-app reporting tools and choose the option that covers threats, sexual exploitation or sharing intimate images. Report each account the person used.

If you’re worried they’ve already posted something, report that content too. Our guide on removing intimate images shared without consent covers platform and Google removal routes in detail.

Step 4: Report the crime

• FBI. You can report sextortion at tips.fbi.gov, through the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, or by calling your local FBI field office.
• Local police. You can also make a report with your local police department, especially if you know who the person is or they’re nearby.
• NCMEC CyberTipline. If you’re under 18, or the images were taken when you were under 18, you can report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through its CyberTipline, online or by phone. NCMEC works with platforms and law enforcement.

If you’re a teenager and worried about getting in trouble: the focus of these organizations is protecting you and stopping the person threatening you. Telling a parent, school counselor or another trusted adult is one of the most helpful things you can do.

Step 5: Use takedown and blocking tools

You don’t have to wait for images to appear to act. These tools can help before or after something is posted:

Tool	Who it’s for	What it does
Take It Down (NCMEC)	People who were under 18 in the images, or a parent or trusted adult on their behalf	Creates a hash so participating platforms can find and remove or block matching images
StopNCII.org	Adults 18 and over	Creates a hash of intimate images so participating platforms can detect and block them
Platform reporting	Anyone	Reports specific posts, messages and accounts for removal under the platform’s rules
Google removal requests	Anyone	Google accepts requests to remove non-consensual explicit images from its search results

Not every website participates in the hashing programs, so reporting directly to platforms and to Google is still worth doing for anything that appears.

Step 6: Protect your accounts and privacy

• Set your social accounts to private and hide your friends or followers list where the platform allows. Criminals use these lists to threaten you.
• Change passwords and turn on two-factor authentication if you think they may have accessed any account.
• Tell close friends or family you trust, if you can, so they know to report and ignore anything sent to them rather than open it or pass it on.
• Remove public contact details such as your phone number or address from profiles and, if needed, from search results and people-search sites.

Worked example: a college student targeted on Instagram

This is an illustrative scenario, not a real case.

A 19-year-old student starts chatting with an account that looks like another student from a nearby college. After a few days of flirting, they exchange photos. Within minutes, the other person sends a screenshot of his follower list and demands money through a payment app, or they’ll send the photos to his family and classmates.

He’s panicking, but he doesn’t pay. He screenshots the messages, the profile and the payment username. He reports the account to Instagram, then blocks it and sets his account to private with his follower list hidden. He creates a hash of the photos through StopNCII.org, and he files a report with the FBI at ic3.gov. He tells his roommate, who helps him keep watch. The account messages from two new profiles over the next day; he reports and blocks both without replying. The threats stop. Many sextortion attempts end this way once the target stops responding, though not all do, which is why reporting and hashing matter.

What not to do

• Don’t pay, even a small amount to “buy time.” It usually signals you’ll pay again.
• Don’t try to track down or confront the person. Leave that to law enforcement.
• Don’t delete everything in a panic. Save evidence first.
• Don’t use “recovery” or “hacker” services that promise to delete the images from the criminal’s device. They can’t, and many are scams themselves.
• Don’t blame yourself. These criminals are practiced at manipulation. Being tricked is not a character flaw.

Where to get support

• NCMEC offers support for young people and families affected by sextortion, alongside the CyberTipline and Take It Down.
• Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) runs a free, 24/7 helpline for people experiencing image-based sexual abuse, including sextortion.
• 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 if you’re in crisis.
• A lawyer can advise on civil options or protective orders if you know who the person is. Laws on sharing intimate images without consent vary by state, and federal law also addresses it.

Our help resources page gathers places to report online abuse, and our guide on what to do about online harassment covers wider safety steps.

If images have appeared online

If images have already been posted, act on each one: report it to the site, submit a Google removal request for search results, and use the hashing tools above. If content keeps reappearing or has spread across several sites, our content removal service can help identify which removal routes apply to each location. We handle these cases confidentially and will be honest about what can and can’t be removed.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I get sextortion help right now?

Report the account to the platform, then report the crime to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov or ic3.gov. If you’re under 18, or the images were taken when you were under 18, contact NCMEC’s CyberTipline and use Take It Down. For emotional support in a crisis, call or text 988.

Will the person really share my images if I don't pay?

Nobody can promise either way, but paying doesn’t reliably stop it and often leads to more demands. Many criminals move on when the target stops responding. Reporting the account and using Take It Down or StopNCII helps limit where images can spread if they do try.

Will I get in trouble if I'm a minor and sent images?

The priority for NCMEC and law enforcement in sextortion cases is protecting the young person and stopping the offender. You are the victim. Telling a trusted adult and reporting it are the right steps.

Can I get the images removed from the internet?

Often, yes, from the places that host them. Platforms remove sextortion content under their rules, Google removes non-consensual explicit images from search results on request, and hashing tools help block re-uploads on participating sites. No tool can remove images from the criminal’s own device.

What if the images are fake or AI-generated?

Treat it the same way: don’t pay, save evidence, report the account and report the crime. Many platforms’ rules and Google’s removal policies also cover sexually explicit fake or synthetic images of real people.