How it starts
An account that looks like a student at another school, or a fan, or a girl from a party last weekend. A few days of normal messages. Then a request to trade pictures, or a video call that is recorded. Then, within minutes, the threat: pay, or this goes to your coach, your mother, and every follower you have.
The people running these schemes work in volume. They are not interested in you. They are interested in the next twenty minutes, because that is when most victims pay.
The first hour
- Do not pay. Paying never ends it. It confirms you will pay again.
- Do not delete anything. Screenshot the profile, the messages, and the threat, with the username and the date visible. Then stop replying. Do not block yet; blocking before the screenshots loses the evidence.
- Tell one adult who will not panic. A position coach, a director of operations, a trainer, a parent. Someone whose job tonight is to make calls, not to lecture.
- Report it to the platform and to the FBI. Instagram, Snapchat and the rest have a dedicated path for this. The FBI takes reports at its Internet Crime Complaint Center. The report matters even when nothing seems to happen; it is how these groups eventually get taken down.
- Lock the accounts. Change passwords, turn on two-step sign-in, and set the profile to private for a week.
What the staff member does
- Listens, takes the screenshots into safekeeping, and does not ask to see the images.
- Calls the department's response contact if there is one. If there is not, campus police.
- Does not contact the account, pay, or negotiate. Ever.
- Checks on the athlete the next day, and the day after. The threat usually fades within a week. The shame does not, and that is what the risk really is.
What a department does before it happens
Brief the roster once a year with real cases, name the person they should call, and make sure that person knows the five steps above. Programs that do this get told early. Programs that do not find out from a parent, or from the news.