Beware of Photo Sharing Email Scams
What You Can Do To Protect Yourself From Photo Sharing Email Scams
You are as susceptible to photo sharing email scams as everyone else on the Internet. Fortunately, you can easily protect yourself by being alert to the messages you receive in your in-box.
All too often, people are tricked by scammers who would rather steal from others than earn an honest living. They are constantly looking for sneaky ways to get your valuable personal information. Once they gain access to your personal information, they can steal your identity and cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Email Photo Sharing Scams
Emails scams are one of the easiest and most popular scams to conduct. While it's a hit and miss approach, they usually reach enough relevant mailboxes to make it worthwhile for the scammers. Members of photo sharing sites are now susceptible to these scams.
It works like this.
Scammers have put together convincing email messages that contain everything necessary so they look like they come from the photo sharing site. Believe it or not, they even come complete with warnings about scams. They do this so that you drop your guard.
There are things you can do to protect yourself from these photo sharing email scams, and any other "phishing" email you receive.
First, be aware that a membership site that contains your personal details, especially your financial information, will never send you an email with a live link for you to click to access your account. Rather, you will be asked to go to your account by using your browser. Never click those live links in emails.
This includes any membership site including eBay, PayPal, your bank or financial institution as well as photo sharing sites.
If you receive any message from these types of institutions, immediately become suspicious. Watch for messages that issue some sort of warning that your account has been accessed illegally, or that you need to update your information to remain a member. They usually will have an urgency, for instance if you don't take action right away you'll lose access to your account.
When some people read these alerts, they spontaneously click those fake links. The moment they enter their account access details, i.e.: username and password, it's too late. The scammers rely on this.
Fortunately, not all is lost. If you've received a scam email related to your photo sharing account or any other account, immediately go to your browser and open up your account the normal way.
Log into your account, go to your profile or account information page, and change your password. The sooner you do this, the less time you will give scammers to take advantage of your ID.
Notify the site owners about the email scam. Let them know that you might have compromised your account. They will take appropriate action to protect your information.
Stay alert, watch out for those dreaded "phishing" emails and you can easily protect yourself from photo sharing email scams.
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