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. [Read more…]