If a match is asking you for money, or threatening to share intimate photos of you unless you pay, the steps are the same: stop replying, do not pay, keep the evidence and report it. It is not your fault, and it is common. In the United States alone, nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam to the Federal Trade Commission in 2022, with reported losses of $1.3 billion. This page covers the first hour, getting images taken down, and where to report, with every hotline and law labelled by country. Spotting a fake profile before any of this starts has its own page: how to spot a fake profile.
Romance scam or sextortion: two versions of the same con
A romance scam is slow. According to the FTC, the scammer builds trust first, sometimes chatting several times a day, and soon wants to move off the app. They cannot meet you, because they are abroad, on an oil rig or in the military. Then comes a story and a request: a plane ticket, surgery, a visa fee, sometimes a cryptocurrency investment they will help you start.
Sextortion is fast. The UK's National Crime Agency describes contact from an account you do not know, or a hacked account of someone you do, a conversation that turns sexually explicit quickly, sometimes with the other person sending an image first, and a move to a private, encrypted messaging app. Once you have shared an image, the blackmail starts: pay money, or buy a gift card, or the pictures go to your friends and family. The NCA says this is usually the work of organised gangs, often based overseas, and that men aged 18 to 30 are particularly at risk. In the US, sextortion reports to the FTC rose more than eightfold between 2019 and 2022.
Both scams want payment that is hard to reverse. The FTC lists wire transfers through companies such as Western Union or MoneyGram, gift cards (Amazon, Google Play, iTunes or Steam) with the PIN codes, money transfer apps and cryptocurrency. A request to pay any of those ways, from someone you have never met, is the answer to whether it is a scam.
First: stop, and do not pay
Stop replying. Take the screenshots listed in the next section, then block the account on every platform where it can reach you. The NCA and the UK's Revenge Porn Helpline are both firm about the next part: do not pay, and do not negotiate. Here is the NCA's reasoning. Paying does not guarantee the threats stop, and once you have shown you can pay, the offender will likely ask for more. The helpline adds that the amount demanded is designed to be just enough to tempt you, and that it will not be the last demand.
If you have already paid, the NCA's advice is not to panic, and not to pay anything more.
Silence works better than it feels like it will. In the Revenge Porn Helpline's experience, blackmailers quickly lose interest and move on to their next target once they realise no money is coming and they have no way to reach you. Nobody can promise that about any single case, but it is why the official advice is so consistent.
Then tell one person you trust. The FTC suggests it for romance scams, where friends often see what you cannot, and the NCA stresses that people targeted by sextortion have been tricked, and that it is not their fault. Shame is part of the pressure. Saying it out loud to someone takes some of it away.
Keep the evidence, even the parts you would rather delete
The urge to wipe everything is strong. Resist it for now: the NCA advises against deleting anything that could be used as evidence, including messages, images and bank account details. Ideally before you block, collect:
- Screenshots of the profile, including the username and any links it shows.
- Screenshots or screen recordings of the conversation, especially the threats and the payment demands.
- Any bank details, wallet addresses, gift card requests or payment links they sent you.
- Receipts or confirmations for anything you have already paid.
- If images have already been posted, the web addresses where they appear. The NCA says to collect the links, and not to share them with anyone except the people helping you remove them.
If you want to leave a social media account the scammer has found, the NCA recommends deactivating it rather than deleting it, so that data can still be retrieved. Then report the profile to the dating app itself, as the FTC advises, so the app can act on the account. Our page on what to do about harassment covers blocking and reporting in more detail.
If you sent money: call your bank today
Speed matters here. If you paid with a gift card, a wire transfer, a credit or debit card or cryptocurrency, the FTC says to contact the company or your bank right away, tell them you paid a scammer and ask for your money back. For sextortion payments, the Revenge Porn Helpline gives the same advice: contact your bank or the platform you used to send the money. There is no guarantee of a refund, and the methods scammers prefer are chosen precisely because they are hard to reverse. Asking still costs nothing.
Then watch for the second wave. The FTC warns about refund and recovery scams, in which someone contacts people who have already lost money, claims to be from a government agency, a law firm or a consumer group, and offers to recover it for an upfront fee. Its rule is short: government agencies and legitimate organisations will never ask for money to help you get a refund.
Getting intimate images taken down
Two tools and one law are worth knowing. They do different things for different people, and the second tool and the law have confusingly similar names.
StopNCII.org, for adults
StopNCII is a free tool developed by Meta and the charity SWGfL, and operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline. It creates a digital fingerprint, called a hash, of an intimate image or video on your own device; the image itself never leaves your phone or computer, and only the hash is shared. Participating platforms use the hash to find and remove matching copies. According to the Revenge Porn Helpline, you can use it if you are the person in the image, you were over 18 in it, you have a copy on your device, and the content is nude, semi-nude or sexual. You do not have to wait until something is posted: its FAQ suggests creating a case if someone is threatening to share. Synthetic or deepfake images of you can be hashed too.
Two limits. It only works on participating platforms: when we checked its partner list in September 2026, it named Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Reddit, Snap, X and Bluesky, among others, but not Tinder, Hinge, Bumble or Grindr. And your case number and PIN cannot be recovered if you lose them, so keep them somewhere safe.
Take It Down, for images taken before you were 18
Take It Down is run by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US. The service is for anyone with nude, partially nude or sexually explicit images or videos of themselves taken before they were 18, which have been or may be shared online; what counts is your age in the image, not your age now. A hash is made on your device, the image is not uploaded, and participating platforms use the hash to detect exact copies and remove them. You can use it free and anonymously. Encrypted services, and sites that have not agreed to take part, are out of its reach.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act, in the United States only
A US federal law with a similar name has applied since 19 May 2026. Covered platforms, such as social media, messaging and image or video sharing apps and sites, must offer a way to request removal of intimate images shared without consent, and must remove them and known identical copies within 48 hours of a valid request. Real images, digitally altered ones and AI deepfakes are all included. If a platform misses the deadline, or has no working removal process, you can report it to the FTC at TakeItDown.ftc.gov, for yourself, for your child, or for someone else with their permission. Only platforms can remove the images; the FTC's job is to make sure they comply.
Where to report, country by country
Laws and helplines differ from one country to the next, so treat each line below as applying only where it says. In every country, report the account to the app or platform where it contacted you.
- United States: report romance scams to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Report frauds, scams and cyber threats to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov or to your local FBI field office. The FTC notes that sharing an intimate image of you without consent is a crime, to report to local police and to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI. If explicit content was stolen from your accounts and posted, the FBI asks victims to report it at ncii.ic3.gov. For an immediate threat to life, call 911.
- United Kingdom: report to the police on 101, or 999 if you are at immediate risk of harm. For fraud and cyber crime, the NCA also lists Report Fraud, online or on 0300 123 2040. The Revenge Porn Helpline offers free, confidential help to adults affected by intimate image abuse who live in the UK, from 10:00 to 16:00 on weekdays. Under UK law, both threatening to share and sharing an intimate image without consent are offences.
- Under 18, in the UK: the NCA directs young people to a trusted adult, to its CEOP Safety Centre, and to Report Remove from Childline and the Internet Watch Foundation, as well as Take It Down.
- Anywhere else: contact your national police or cybercrime reporting service, and check which local laws apply to you before assuming that any of the rules above do.
If the person is overseas, reporting can feel pointless. The Revenge Porn Helpline is honest that UK police may be limited in what they can do in that case, but says reports still add to national intelligence about these crimes.
When the threat is to out you
For trans and non-binary people, the threat can carry an extra edge. A blackmailer who says they will send photos to your family or your employer may also be threatening to reveal that you are trans, to people you have not told. According to the Revenge Porn Helpline, blackmailers often show screenshots of your friends list from social media, which makes the threat feel precise. None of that changes the steps: do not pay, keep the evidence, report. Your fear is their leverage, and paying only shows them that it works.
If you are already dealing with being outed, or worried you are about to be, what to do if you've been outed picks up from here.
Where you date shapes some of the risk. T4TSpace is a dating app by and for trans and non-binary people, and every account on it is checked by a person; our verification page explains how, and what dating app verification checks, and where it fails explains why no check is a guarantee on any app. If you are comparing trans dating apps, our page on Translr reads its listing in full. Whatever the app, our safety page gathers the rest of our advice.
Questions people actually ask
Will they really share my photos if I don't pay?
Nobody can promise either way, and anyone who does is guessing. What the official advice agrees on is that paying does not buy safety: the UK's National Crime Agency says there is no guarantee payment stops the threats, and that paying is likely to lead to more demands. The Revenge Porn Helpline says that, in its experience, blackmailers tend to move on once they realise no money is coming. If images are shared, tools such as StopNCII.org and, in the US, the TAKE IT DOWN Act give you ways to get them removed.
How can I tell if a sextortion threat is real?
Often you cannot, and you do not need to. Sextortion scripts are reused, and the Revenge Porn Helpline lists common pressure tactics: threatening to send footage to family and friends, demanding payment by online bank transfer, showing screenshots of your friends list, and accusing you of having spoken to a minor. The National Crime Agency adds that offenders may claim to have hacked your accounts, whether or not that is true. Treat any such threat as serious enough to report, and none of it as a reason to pay.
Should I delete my accounts after a sextortion attempt?
Not straight away. The UK's National Crime Agency recommends deactivating a social media account rather than deleting it, because deactivation still allows data to be retrieved if it is needed as evidence. It also advises against deleting messages, images or bank details the scammer sent. Once you have screenshots and have reported the account, tighten your privacy settings so strangers cannot see your contacts or followers, and consider setting a search alert on your name so you hear quickly if anything is posted.
What if the images they are threatening to share are fake or AI-generated?
Report them the same way. The UK's National Crime Agency notes that offenders sometimes send digitally manipulated or AI-generated images of a person to make the threat look wider. StopNCII.org says that if a synthetic or deepfake image is of you, you can hash it so that participating platforms can detect it. In the United States, the TAKE IT DOWN Act covers digitally altered images and AI deepfakes as well as real ones, and platforms must act on a valid removal request within 48 hours.
Can the police do anything if the scammer is in another country?
Sometimes less than you would hope, but reporting still matters. The Revenge Porn Helpline says that when the perpetrator is overseas, UK police may be limited in what they can do, but a report adds to national intelligence about these crimes. The National Crime Agency describes sextortion as usually carried out by organised gangs, often based abroad. Report to your local police and to the platform, and in the US to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, even if nobody is arrested.
Wren · Editor
Wren is the name the T4TSpace blog is published under. The posts are written by the small team that builds the app, and signed with one name so the voice stays the same from one piece to the next.