• Contact Us
  • Events calendar
Entering Swellesley
Pinnacle, Wellesley

The Swellesley Report

More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.

  • Advertise
  • Contribute
  • Eat
  • Wellesley Square
  • School
  • Top 10 things to do
  • Embracing diversity
  • Charities/Community
  • Arts
  • Camp
  • Kids
  • Events
  • About us
  • Subscribe
  • Natick Report
  • COVID-19
  • Letters to the Editor
Needham Bank, Wellesley
Boston Sports Institute, Wellesley

Bah humbug in Wellesley — Bitcoin extortionist betting residents have been naughty, not nice

December 24, 2017 by Deborah Brown 2 Comments

Look out, Wellesley ne’er do wells. Somebody out there wants you to believe that he sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. Unlike Santa, this “visionary” doesn’t wish you well, and in fact wants to shake you down to the tune of $8,500. Here’s the scam: first a letter arrives via the USPS addressed to who I’ll refer to as a Threatened Person. Next, the letter writer claims he knows exactly what the Threatened Person has been up to and will tell all unless $8,500 in Bitcoin is paid. Detailed instructions about how to make this happen are included. The letter writer takes a weary tone. He seems truly exhausted by the whole sordid business and just wants his due for all the time he put in digging up dirt on the Threatened Person.

I checked in with the Wellesley Police, and Lt. Marie Cleary said, “We have had a couple of residents either drop off letters or call to notify us of receiving them, but to our knowledge no residents have fallen prey to the scam. The envelopes have no return address and are postmarked out of state, but from different states. The people who have notified us suspected it was a scam and just wanted to let us know.”

Now you want to know, too, of course. so The Swellesley Report has obtained a copy of one of the letters. Here it is:

Hello, THREATENED PERSON. I’m going to cut to the chase. I know about the secret you are keeping from your wife and everyone else. More importantly, I have evidence of what you have been hiding. I won’t go into the specifics here in case your wife intercepts this, but you know what I am talking about.

You don’t know me personally and nobody hired me to look into you. Nor did I go out looking to burn you. It is just your bad luck that I stumbled across your misadventures while working a job around Wellesley. I then put in more time than I probably should have looking into your life. Frankly, I am ready to forget all about you and let you get on with your life. And I am going to give you two options that will accomplish that very thing. Those two options are to either ignore this letter, or simply pay me $8,500. Let’s examine those two options in more detail.

Options 1 is to ignore this letter. Let me tell you what will happen if you choose this path. I will take this evidence and send it to your wife. And as insurance against you intercepting it before your wife gets it, I will also send copies to her friends and family. So, THREATENED PERSON, even if you decide to come clean with your wife, it won’t protect her from the humiliation she will feel when her friends and family find out your sordid details from me.

Option 2 is to pay me $8,500. We’ll call this my “confidentiality fee”. Now let me tell you what happens if you choose this path. Your secret remains your secret. You go on with your life as though none of this ever happened. Though you may want to do a better job at keeping your misdeeds secret in the future.

At this point you may be thinking, “I’ll just go to the cops.” Which is why I’ve taken steps to ensure this letter can’t be traced back to me. So that won’t help, and it won’t stop the evidence from destroying your life. I’m not looking to break your bank. I just want to be compensated for the time I put into investigating you. $8,500 will close the books on that.

Let’s assume you’ve decided to make all this go away and pay me the confidentiality fee. In keeping with my strategy to not go to jail, we will not meet in person and there will be no physical exchange of cash. You will pay me anonymously using bitcoin. If you want me to keep your secret, then send $8,500 in BITCOIN to the Receiving Bitcoin Address listed below. Payment MUST be received within 10 days of the postmarked date on this letter’s envelope. If you are not familiar with bitcoin, attached is a “How-To” guide. You will need the below two pieces of information when referencing the guide.

Required amount: $8,500

Receiving Bitcoin Address:  a long code is listed

Tell noone what you will be using the bitcoin for or they may not give it to you. The procedure to obtain bitcoin may take a day or two so do not put it off. Again, payment must be received within 10 days of this letter’s postmarked date. If I don’t receive the bitcoin by the deadline, I will go ahead and release the evidence to everyone. If you go that route, then the least you could do is tell your wife so she can come up with an excuse to prepare her friends and family before they find out. The clock is ticking, THREATENED PERSON.

As our source said about his friend receiving one of the letters, “I found it fascinating. My only concern is that if I received such a letter, I might not know where to begin in figuring out which of my many past transgressions had been found out by the mystery writer!”

Indeed. Here’s to living a clean, wholesome, and guilt-free life.

print

Share

Filed Under: Crime, Finance, Fundraising, Police

Comments

  1. Bill Shribman says

    December 25, 2017 at 6:55 am

    Looks like this has been around for a while: http://klewtv.com/news/nation-world/scam-alert-blackmail-scheme-hopes-your-guilty-conscience-will-result-in-payday but in Pennsylvania you only have to pay $2000 instead of $8500. Typical Wellesley prices!

    Reply
    • Deborah Brown says

      December 26, 2017 at 9:19 am

      Good old-fashioned blackmail never goes out of style. So true about the prices. Wellesley misdeeds are pricier than Pennsylvania shenanigans.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Linden Square, Wellesley
Write Ahead

Tip us off…

Please send tips, photos, ideas to [email protected]
Wellesley Square ad
Wellesley, Jesamondo
Sexton test prep
Feldman Law
Fay School, Southborough
Wellesley Theatre Project
Admit Fit, Wellesley
image of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
Never miss a post with our free daily Swellesley Report email
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

You can subscribe for free, though we appreciate any contribution that supports our independent journalism.

Click here to read our Natick Report

Natick Report

Events Calendar

« January 2021 » loading...
S M T W T F S
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
Tue 26

Rum tasting and history talk

January 26 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Most Read Posts

  • Wellesley Police arrest 3 juveniles following Crest Road-area car break-ins
  • Wellesley Business Buzz: Babson might want to study us; Downtown Starbucks temporarily closed; Sisters of Charity partners
  • Natick issues boil water alert due to E. coli, some Wellesley homes affected
  • Wellesley Business Buzz: Linden Square tests new signs; Custom Ink setting up shop; Foundation for MetroWest has new leader; The Cottage doing takeout & delivery; visiting The Greenhouse at Lookout Farm
  • Nearly half of Wellesley's available restaurant alcohol licenses are gathering dust

Pages

  • Wellesley coronavirus (COVID-19) updates
  • Wellesley’s 7 official scenic roads
  • Wellesley, Mass., fishing spots
  • Please support our advertisers—they support us
  • Embracing diversity in Wellesley
  • Wellesley, MA Police logs
  • Wellesley Choral Society
  • Wellesley College Notable Alumnae
  • Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
  • Wellesley outdoor art gallery
  • Wellesley restaurants offering take-out and delivery
  • Wellesley, Massachusetts restaurant — Amarin of Thailand

Recent Comments

  • David Henry on Wellesley electrical boxes coming alive
  • Bob Brown on 10 takeaways from the Town of Wellesley’s FY20 annual report
  • S Hawkinson on 10 takeaways from the Town of Wellesley’s FY20 annual report
  • Barbara Moore Keever on Wellesley Animal Control Officer Sue Webb to retire after 45 years on the job
  • Anon on Wellesley Police arrest 3 juveniles following Crest Road-area car break-ins

Links we like

  • Great Runs
  • Jack Sanford: Wellesley's Major League Baseball Star
  • Taquitos.net
  • Tech-Tamer
  • The Wellesley Wine Press
  • Universal Hub
  • Wellesley Sports Discussion Facebook Group

Categories

  • 2021 Town Election (4)
  • Animals (377)
  • Antiques (48)
  • Art (534)
  • Beyond Wellesley (28)
  • Books (342)
  • Business (1,356)
  • Camp (1)
  • Careers/jobs (44)
  • Churches (72)
  • Clubs (207)
  • Construction (280)
  • Dump (113)
  • Education (2,876)
    • Babson College (239)
    • Bates Elementary School (14)
    • Dana Hall School (29)
    • Fiske Elementary School (6)
    • Hardy Elementary School (33)
    • Hunnewell Elementary School (34)
    • MassBay (47)
    • Schofield Elementary School (20)
    • Sprague Elementary School (19)
    • St. John School (1)
    • Tenacre Country Day School (9)
    • Upham Elementary School (30)
    • Wellesley College (598)
    • Wellesley High School (883)
    • Wellesley Middle School (195)
  • Embracing diversity (36)
  • Entertainment (721)
  • Environment (664)
  • Fashion (133)
  • Finance (12)
  • Fire (141)
  • Food (327)
  • Fundraising (559)
  • Gardens (136)
  • Government (383)
    • 2020 Town Election (47)
  • Health (736)
    • COVID-19 (133)
  • History (357)
  • Holidays (365)
  • Houses (118)
  • Humor (45)
  • Kids (814)
  • Law (3)
  • Letters to the Editor (5)
  • Media (63)
  • METCO (5)
  • Military (3)
  • Morses Pond (96)
  • Music (543)
  • Natick Report (27)
  • Neighbors (242)
  • Obituaries (58)
  • Outdoors (582)
  • Parenting (60)
  • Police (687)
    • Crime (344)
  • Politics (534)
  • Real estate (286)
  • Religion (127)
  • Restaurants (302)
  • Safety (142)
  • Scouts (1)
  • Senior citizens (107)
  • Shopping (121)
  • Sports (897)
  • STEM (104)
  • Technology (154)
  • Theatre (383)
  • Town Meeting (22)
  • Transportation (209)
  • Travel (11)
  • Uncategorized (1,205)
  • Volunteering (316)
  • Weather (161)
  • Wellesley Election 2019 (21)
  • Wellesley Free Library (258)
  • Wellesley's Wonderful Weekend (5)
RSS Feed Icon Subscribe to RSS Feed

© 2021 The Swellesley Report
Site by Tech-Tamer · Login