Your usually cheerful, talkative teenage daughter seems withdrawn. She spends long hours on the computer, usually at night, but shuts it off quickly when you enter the room. And your telephone bill shows long-distance calls to phone numbers you don't recognize. According to the FBI, these are some signs that someone may be trying to victimize your child online. Just four years ago, a study on Internet use in the United States put the number of users under age 18 at 10 million, a number that has since grown exponentially.
Internet predators know that the pool of potential victims is huge.
Many establish online relationships with several children at a time. Other leads involve pedophiles who collect and trade child pornography, engage in sexually explicit conversations with children on first contact, or exchange personal information about potential victims with other pedophiles. When he locates a victim, he tries to move the conversation into a private area of the chat room so they can get to know each other. Then the predator may telephone and finally, set up an in-person meeting. The man, claiming he was a child psychologist, met the boy in a chat room.