A student who became a dollar millionaire in five months with a website offering internet advertising space has fallen victim to a blackmail attempt.
Alex Tew, 21, who is in the first year of a business management course at Nottingham University, gained widespread publicity after the success of milliondollarhomepage.com.
However his enterprise attracted the attention of extortionists who said they would attack the site unless $50,000 (£28,000) was paid. Mr Tew, of Cricklade, Wilts, received an e-mail on Jan 7, four days before the sale of the last space of his site took his earnings past $1 million.
It warned that if he did not hand over $5,000 by Jan 10, his site would be paralysed by a deluge of e-mails.
A week later he received a second e-mail with the ransom raised to $50,000. After again ignoring the demand, his site was put out of action for six days.
"I haven't replied to any of the e-mails as I don't want to give them the satisfaction, and I certainly don't intend to pay any money," he said.
