I (18M) turned 18 a couple days ago and was excited to finally be able to sign up for a hookup site. I had scoured a few and found one to be the most recommended site. I was oblivious and ignored the signs when an acc (said 23 if I remember) reached out to me with sketchy info and asking to chat on gmail and google chat instead of using the website which could be monitored. And so I did, and got a little too excited since I wasn’t able to find many real ppl cuz most of the acc were bots. It was also refreshing cuz the person was talking like a real person and not using broken grammar, and sent photos that didn’t look like they were pulled off google images. I was gullible and believed this person belonged to a model agency affiliated with the website which was responsible for the safety of the person (somewhat like an escort) and made a payment which I was told I would get back sort of like an insurance in case something were to happen with the model. Even sketchier was I was told to send the money to some person in an other country using a third party payment service.

I ended up disclosing my real name, email, phone number, a picture of myself, and a private photo (faceless, bottom half, nothing to associate me with). But realized it became even more suspicious as time passed and decided to cut communication with this person; and I came to accept I was not getting my money back.

So a few days passed and I thought it was over. Then during class, I got an email from the “agency” which I contacted using my work email, threatening me with blackmail. They had my contacts, convos, and pics, and found my Facebook which follows my high-school sports team. I panicked and purged everything associated with this situation, DMs, email to hookup website, apps, Facebook, changed social media usernames, blocked the email and permanently deleted everything (I realized I probably should’ve kept it but I was scared).

The person was showing me screenshots of my Facebook and school, saying that authorities and FBI would be useless, and could ruin my life. The scariest part was the screenshot of a blog they were gonna post saying I was sending stuff to minors with my info at the bottom, and they were gonna send this story to CNN.

So I took the precautions and emailed the school about a data leak of mine, which they haven’t responded to yet since the email is not checked daily.

There’s a few things I’ve gathered but I don’t have the answer to:

I live in BC where the age of majority is 19, so technically I’m still a minor as well. Could this be used in my favour?

I don’t attend the high school anymore and the Facebook sport account is run by another alumni older than me (I don’t know who or if the account is still monitored) but the email the blackmailer has is what I use at my post secondary institution. But it looks like they think I’m still in high school. Would the high school do anything since I don’t attend anymore?

Would it be possible for them to find out what post secondary I attend? I gave them a general location of my address which could be used to find out where I go, but would the institution care since I technically haven’t done anything illegal or on campus?

Could they report me to CNN? I said some stuff in the DMs that could be edited to make me look like a pedo and I deleted my side of the convo like an idiot so I have no defending proof.

It’s been 2 days since and idk what else the blackmailer is going to do. The last thing was the blackmailer thinking I was running away and sending “you think you can run away? We’ll see 😉”I don’t have enough info for the authorities to help me and I can’t tell any of my friends or family.

If anyone could give me any advice or answers to my questions, anything.