If the original company no longer exists then, the debt is erased. ... So their blackmail demands can be safely ignored and disregarded. ... Am I right @Freelancewriter?
I don't think so. First, there's no indication from unknown1 that any of this has to do with collecting a legitimate debt owed to the company. To the contrary, according to his only post in this thread, it was a company that
scammed him, not a company rightfully owed any money from him. Second, blackmail is a serious crime, making the corporate and/or ownership status of the company and/or whatever website or email system they use to perpetrate it totally irrelevant. Nobody should ever respond to blackmail threats or engage with blackmailers at all. Just block every means by which they try to contact you without replying and immediately report it to law enforcement. Do exactly that and do nothing else, (except preserve the information in case it's needed by law enforcement as evidence).
Also, understand that blackmail is a federal crime, giving the FBI jusrisdiction; so, just contact your local FBI field office about it, regardless of where you are in the U.S. They have the necessary tools to ID your blackmailer, even if you only know the person through an email address and a PayPal ID. While it's only a misdemeanor with a 1-year maximum prison sentence, perpetrating blackmail online makes it an entirely different and much more serious federal crime with prison sentences up to 20 years. That's why you should definitely report it and that's also why knowing the real ID of your U.S.-based writer is an effective safeguard against any possibility of blackmail, because nobody subject to federal criminal jusrisdiction is crazy enough to take that kind of risk with such an obvious electronic trail, especially over the relatively small amounts of money involved in these kinds of transactions.