Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
SOUTH JORDAN — A South Jordan teen and his family are sounding the alarm after a scam text took a dark turn.
Within days of responding, the predator was targeting the 14-year-old, and police said this is a lot more common than you might think.
It started with a text from an unknown number. Jack Monsen knows the texts like this come from scammers. He and his friends think it's funny to "flip the script" on the scammers by sending back nonsense messages. But this time around, things got scary.
Like most 14-year-olds, Monsen is on his phone quite a bit. He shares funny memes with his parents. Even his mom, Mandy Monsen, knows how her son and his buddies like to taunt scammers. In the recent case, the scammer offered him a job.
"Because he started texting me, I thought it was be funny to make this a bad experience for him," he said.
But within a few days, the scammer reached out again, this time on WhatsApp, and with more personal information."It was like 'hello Jack,'" he said. He was taken aback that they knew his name. And they were getting more forward, sending and asking for pictures.
"I was like 'No because I'm self-conscious. I don't like sending pictures to anyone,'" he said.
Then the texter started sending pornographic images. "I was shaking," he said. "I was really scared." At this point, the teen told his parents.
"The pornographic pictures had popped up and my stomach just dropped," Mandy Monsen said.
She knew about her son's efforts to "mess" with scammers, but this was scary. "I was devastated that someone had been talking to my son," she said. "I mean, he's my baby."
She called the police and took the phone in. "We've seen a huge increase in teen victims in this type of crime across the country," Sgt. Eric Anderson with the South Jordan Police Department said.
Chances are, the Monsens will never know who was targeting the 14-year-old. But the family has learned some important lessons that they hope others won't have to learn on their own.
"I'm definitely going to tell everybody I know — adults and kids, teenagers — because you never know," she said.
The teen said going to his parents wasn't easy, but absolutely necessary.
"Let others know. If you're not comfortable with your parents, there's always other people you can go to," he said.
Police said if you get one of these messages, you should not respond. You should delete it and block the number.
