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There has been an uptick in client emails asking me to review emails or letters from dubious sources. In almost all cases, they have been scams. They tend to be variations of the same schemes over and over. They are trying to either get you to download something, release/transfer a domain, or pay a ransom. I’m going to show you what I’ve seen so you can avoid getting trapped. Here is today’s example:

The Angry Photographer

I’ve personally received this and seen it from several of my clients. An email comes in and it usually goes something like this:

This is xxxxxxxx and I am a qualified photographer.

I was discouraged, to put it nicely, when I found my images at your website. If you use a copyrighted image without an owner’s license, you should know that you could be sued by the creator.

It’s illegal to use stolen images and it’s so disgusting!

Here is this document with the links to my images you used at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com and my earlier publications to obtain the evidence of my ownership.

Download it right now and check this out for yourself:

https://sites.google.com/view/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/gdrive/shared/storage/file/download?f=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If you don’t remove the images mentioned in the document above during the next several days, I’ll file a complaint on you to your hosting provider stating that my copyrights have been severely infringed and I am trying to protect my intellectual property.

And if it doesn’t work, you may be pretty damn sure I am going to take it to court! And I will not bother myself to let you know of it in advance.

Ok, first of all why do they need to tell us they are a “qualified” photographer? That seemed really important info. Anyway, it is very dangerous to your wallet to use images that aren’t properly licensed. DON’T EVER USE IMAGES YOU JUST FOUND ON GOOGLE. That is the truth that this scam is exploiting. 

I know for sure this is a scam because I built this website and we only use images that have been licensed for that purpose. Even if I had not built it, I could tell because it is asking for the reader to download something. NEVER DOWNLOAD SOMETHING FROM AN EMAIL WHEN YOU DON’T PERSONALLY KNOW THE SENDER. Who knows what the real purpose of the download is, but I can guess it has something nefarious to do with hacking your computer. 

TL;DR

• Make sure you are using properly licensed images.
• Don’t download things from suspicious emails.

Have a scam-free day!