Scam drives autistic boy to suicide.

Post Reply New Topic

LINK TO Newspaper article.

If only the above young man had enquired first here on Wrong Planet, we could have told him not to be frightened of the above scam where a very official looking letter makes it look like the Police have been seeing what you have been looking at online and are going to prosecute you for it.

DO NOT BE ALARMED!
It is simply an attachment that is not from the police at all, more likely from some Russian fraudsters.

If any of you are ever worried or frightened about something, do not act in haste, come here and ask, there are many of us who have lived a lifetime and can help you.
Never be embarrassed, we have all been there and done the same as you.

I'm wondering something, if his parents knew their son was likely to believe things like a scam e-mail, why was he left unsupervised to use the net. At the least they could've net nannied the web for him.

Well I don't want to get in an argument about how mental age is ableist and wrong...

When I was 12 I somehow got one of those cheap chain letters, you know the one that claims that it has a hex attached and detailing the horrible fates of those who refused to forward it. I took it literally and handed out copies to kids at school. I got called in to the principal's office. Was I aware it was a scam? Well, no. I assumed it was real. The principal decided that I had intended no harm and did not punish me. Fortunately it didn't go any farther than that.

The email in question has a virus attached which locks your PC. Fortunately most malware of that type is pretty simple to defeat by a knowledgeable computer repair person. If anybody gets one of these, call a tech you trust. Most times the malware can be removed without a reformat.

There was an incident in Romania where some guy got one of these, demanding a whopping 70k Romanian lei (about $20k). He not only hanged himself, he hanged his kid too. Apparently the originator had gotten greedy-$200 is a more likely sum (L100 is maybe $150). The guy lived on a commune and had no way to come up with such a huge sum. Most such emails originate with the Russian Mafia or a related organized crime outfit. Russian mobsters are a pretty callous bunch, and don't care if some kid kills himself over it.

Shouldn't even need a tech to remove, most malware programmes will remove such things.

Sadly, in my early days of internet access (year 1998, age 15), I'd have easily fallen for something like this, and acted equally drastically. Knowing what fellow inmates DO to aspie guys in juvenile prison showers, I'd have preferred a quick, permanent way out to having THAT done to me. Not to mention getting in trouble with my parents, who were very strict at the time (but somehow neglected to put restrictions on my internet use). Although if I had a credit card as a teen, I'd probably have paid the "fine", and never told my parents about any of it; or if they found out, lied about someone stealing the credit card number. Imagine that! A credit card saving my life.

Ironically, when I learned the truth, I had to explain to my parents that these e-mails were false. Although their reactions were more like "what the hell is this?", rather than "oh no, they found me!"

Wow that is just beyond sad, don't really see what else to say on that...I mean nothing that does any good for that kid. I remember I once got sort of a scam message like that and it scared me quite a bit at first thinking the cops where going to come banging on my door but after some thought and really examining the message I determined it was fake. But had i not figured that out who knows what i might have done in a state of panic thinking it was for real.

Just really unfortunate, if he had said something or told someone about the message maybe they could have talked him out of it and helped him........but I understand not saying anything, when I attempted suicide I didn't say a word to anyone acted like everything was fine and it was a huge shock to everyone that sense of not wanting to bother anyone with your crap so just trying to quietly end it.

I actually had an obsession with these scams for a very long time and was well aware about that. If I'd gotten them I'd more likely have gotten pissed about the computer being infected again than going into suicide mode.

I used to fall for these sort of scams and back then I remember when instant messengers would have a chain letter and it would tell you to send it to a certain amount of friends or your account gets removed and it's to make sure your account was still active. I can remember scam messages in emails claiming to be sent by ebay and luckily I never fell for them because ebay informed everyone about spoof emails from them and it said how to tell the difference between a real email from them and a fake email and it had an email to send to them if you suspect you have gotten a spoof message from them so I would forward their fake message to them and they would respond back saying it was a spoof. I remember my ex boyfriend who was aspie fell for them and he told me how he got accused of doing shell bidding so he contacted ebay about it and I told him it was a spoof email and tried telling him how to tell the difference and he refused to listen. I was under the assumption he was naive than willful ignorant.

I feel that all kids should be educated about Internet scams and Internet safety so they can learn how to handle incidents like this one here. I also think it's stupid for people to horse around sending such letters knowing that kids on the spectrum are more likely to be abused and mistreated by cops than regular kids. I also feel very sad that this boy felt he had to end his life over something like this. I agree that his parents should have used software like Net Nanny. I also feel that kids should feel trusting enough to tell their parents when they get into situations like this. Too many kids are committing suicide because of cyber bulling. I also hope that if any kids are dealing with this in the future, they come here for advice so we can help them.

That's really sad. Not sure how I would react to something official looking like that, but would scare me pretty badly. I don't have email except to create my forum accounts, because of stuff like that my dad doesn't want me exposed to.

This is why I'm a cynic, that poor kid.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but it is a good lesson and reminder....along with being a very tragic story.
I got a really scary voicemail on my phone basically saying I was in big trouble with the district court and if I did not call the number they gave within 24 hrs they would come looking for me blah blah. Now first off it sounded like something an adult would get and not a kid, but it was still scary sounding. But I remembered this thread. I did a Google search using the name and phone number I was supposed to call, and sure enough there was stuff about other people getting the same call and that it was a scam. My dad was really angry about it, but also really happy about the way I handled it and said that I passed a real life test with flying colors. Poor scammers, their tricks get so easily exposed on the internet.

The scam is they try to get you to give your social security number and or also your debit card number to pay a fine or whatever.

What a great advice, Nambo!