The original post: /r/ohnoconsequences by /u/Jaxal1 on 2024-05-01 18:38:40.

Ashley Madison promotes itself as a dating site that helps people cheat on their partners. But newly released consumer complaints filed with the FTC, obtained exclusively by Gizmodo, should probably give any potential cheaters pause. The site is lousy with extortion attempts, to put it mildly.

Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all complaints lodged with the FTC over the past five years, and the federal agency says it located 282 in total. The FTC released 200 complaints, most involving extortionists who trick users into giving them naked photos or having a video chat. The extortionists then turn around and demand money, telling the victims that if they refuse they’ll be exposed to friends, family, and employers.

“She took a screen recording of my face and genitals and they started demanding I pay her or she would upload the video and ruin my life,” one typical complaint from a user in Texas reads.

Most of the sextortionists appear to be asking for roughly $1,000 or $2,000 at first, though that can escalate quickly, even if an initial payment is made.

“A lady messaged me and told me she found out my wife’s name, Facebook, and our home address and is demanding $2,000 or she was going to send the information from my profile to my wife,” another complaint from Arkansas explains.

People who say they paid the extortionists often complain that it didn’t stop the scammers from demanding more payments. And that results in a predictable downward spiral of futility for the victims.

Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all complaints lodged with the FTC over the past five years, and the federal agency says it located 282 in total. The FTC released 200 complaints, most involving extortionists who trick users into giving them naked photos or having a video chat. The extortionists then turn around and demand money, telling the victims that if they refuse they’ll be exposed to friends, family, and employers.

“She took a screen recording of my face and genitals and they started demanding I pay her or she would upload the video and ruin my life,” one typical complaint from a user in Texas reads.

Most of the sextortionists appear to be asking for roughly $1,000 or $2,000 at first, though that can escalate quickly, even if an initial payment is made.

“A lady messaged me and told me she found out my wife’s name, Facebook, and our home address and is demanding $2,000 or she was going to send the information from my profile to my wife,” another complaint from Arkansas explains.

People who say they paid the extortionists often complain that it didn’t stop the scammers from demanding more payments. And that results in a predictable downward spiral of futility for the victims.

“After I paid them they then asked for more money. I have a feeling this isn’t going to stop and I don’t know what to do,” one user from Michigan writes.

Ashley Madison has long been a target for extortionists and moral crusaders, with the site suffering a massive data breach back in 2015 after getting hacked. The anonymous hackers demanded the site be taken down or they’d release detailed information about users. After about a month, the hackers made good on their threat, releasing roughly 10 gigabytes of information on the site’s 37 million users. That led to high-profile consequences, including everything from the resignation of a state attorney in Florida to the suicide of a pastor in New Orleans.

But even after such a devastating hack, the site is still around. And scammers seem to be everywhere. Some of the complaints involved victims who at first refused to pay, only to see the scammer then claim to be a minor, for which the consequences could be much greater than embarrassment.

Most of the complaints are about attempts at extortion, but not all of them were from people in committed monogamous relationships. Given the way Ashley Madison is marketed, it’s easy to understand why extortionists believe the site is a target-rich environment for people who are trying to conceal affairs.

The FTC redacted sensitive and private information in the complaints before they were released to Gizmodo, making it impossible to independently verify each claim. But given the common experiences reported from users across the country, we feel it’s valuable to see what consumers are saying about any given product or service—whether it’s hidden cameras at Airbnbs, deadly flea collars, or crypto platforms like FTX.

The 45 complaints below have been edited only slightly for readability, including capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. But the substance of each complaint hasn’t been otherwise changed. Ashley Madison didn’t respond to questions sent on Monday about safeguards the site has in place for extortion attempts. We’ll update this post if we hear back.