You're Never Too Old To Learn About Photo Sharing Scams

How to Identify Photo Sharing Scams

While photo sharing sites take extreme steps to protect your account information, scammers are always looking for loopholes. When there are none evident at the site, they will use outside methods to collect your personal details.

Scams are not restricted to photo sharing sites and memberships. They are regularly conducted on the most popular sites. PayPal and eBay are common targets by scammers. Most online scams are conducted in much the same, whether the criminals are looking to steal your photos or your financial information.

The external techniques used involve sending fake emails to trick you.

You probably wonder how they know you are a member of a certain photo sharing site. The fact is, they most likely don't. If they can get into the photo sharing site, perhaps as a member, they might be able to collect the email addresses of other members.

If they cannot get access to the site, they will run online searches to collect email addresses randomly from the Internet. This is easy to do. When this method is used, they simply email everyone figuring that some recipients will be members of the photo sharing site.

Others just try random email addresses, and some of these will be real.

Once they have compiled their lists, they will put together an email message that sounds like it comes from the photo sharing site.

This is where people who receive those emails can err. Unwittingly, they click the link inside those fake email messages, thinking they will be logging into their accounts as instructed in the message.

The scammers have entered fake links that take you to their own fake site where you can log in. Once you do, they have access to your otherwise protected account.

Email messages like this are called "phishing" emails because they are created for one purpose only, and that's to fish for your personal information.

Photo sharing sites are as susceptible to these scams as are every other membership site on the Internet. The emails will include convincing graphics taken directly from the membership site. They will look and sound very much like they were sent from the membership site.

Things that make them convincing include the way they are written. Scammers simply copy information from the site, or from a typical email message that the site might send its members. If you've ever received one, you'll recognize the wording.

The difference is that a fake email will often include spelling, grammar or format errors. For instance, a sentence that breaks half way across the message.

You can protect yourself quite easily on photo sharing sites simply by learning what to look for.

Read the article, "Beware of Photo Sharing Email Scams" for more tips on how to protect yourself.