Hello @Bsblt, welcome to MetaMask community!
Everything you described sounds like a mining scam. You should never be required to pay someone to get your money, that’s always a scam. The issue lies with the ETH mining scam and it something to be brought to the attention of the law enforcement, although the chances of recovering your money is small even so.
In such cases, it suggest to contact Support team at https://metamask.zendesk.com/hc/en-us and click Start a Conversation and describe to them the situation and what the scam website/dapp was in more detail.
Once you click Start a conversation a live chat bot will appear on your screen. It will give you an automated response at first, but afterwards you should be able to contact the support team directly.
As an added extra safe tip, make sure that anything you mentioned or shared on the forums here does not include personal information.