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Beware Of This Scam

We get a lot of questions about this mysterious email.

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Don't panic or fall for this dangerous scam.

A few of our clients have received a very scary email, and this scam is becoming increasingly common. This all begins with an email claiming you are illegally using photos or illustrations on your website. Some of our clients have even worried that we really did illegally use images on their sites, but we never, ever do that (and often times, the cited images are actually images we've created). In fact, we have personally received this email more than fifteen times over the last two years, and our site has no illegal images whatsoever. These scammers are taking a new approach to the old phishing scheme. They just want you to click a link, and they use fear as a very tempting bait.

What does the email actually say?

The name often changes, but the email usually reads about the same. Here is the most common version we've seen:

"This is Mellie and I am a professional photographer. I was baffled, frankly speaking, when I came across my images on your website. If you use a copyrighted image without my approval, you need to be aware that you could be sued by the owner. It’s illegal to use stolen images and it’s so nasty! Take a look at this document with the links to my images you used at [website URL] and my earlier publications to obtain evidence of my copyrights. Download it now and check this out for yourself: [Redacted link to the phishing site]. If you don’t delete the images mentioned in the document above within the next several days, I’ll write a complaint against you to your hosting provider stating that my copyrights have been infringed and I am trying to protect my intellectual property.

And if it doesn’t work, you may be sure I am going to report and sue you! And I will not bother myself to let you know of it in advance."

What should you do (or not do)?

This is a phishing scam designed to install malware on your computer.

1

Most importantly, do not click on any links in the email. In fact, never click on an emailed link unless you are 100% sure you know the sender (and you can verify the legitimacy of the email, as people can also "spoof" an email address). The goal of the email is to get victims to download some kind of malware, whether it’s a worm, virus, trojan horse, ransomware, adware, spyware, etc.

2

Mark the email as "spam" and delete it from your inbox. You don't want an email with a dangerous link being clicked by anyone else with access to your computer. Plus, reporting an email as spam can help worldwide email hosts identify and eliminate phishing scams much faster. Your actions might prevent someone else from receiving the same email.

3

If you already clicked the link before finding this article, don't panic yet. Often times, these emails are reported as spam and Google has already deleted the link by the time you click. However, if you clicked on the link and items were downloaded to your computer, we recommend you contact a professional computer repair and virus removal specialist.

4

Finally, a bit of a side note: Don't ever use unlicensed, copyrighted images on your website. An innocent person can never be caught. If you got this email and thought, "Uh oh, they found out," then maybe you need to eliminate images you don't own. License images through services like Adobe Stock or Shutterstock, or use free resources like Unsplash or Pexels. These free resources are so good, there's just no excuse for using unlicensed images anymore.

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