Scam Alert: Backlink Photo Credit Scam

A fun new scam is cropping up, similar to the scary sounding spam about infringing photos which phishes you for sensitive information, but this one seems a little less nefarious. Instead of looking to capture your sensitive data, “scammers” (likely more like black-hat SEOs) write to you posing as a client or “on behalf of” a client, claiming you are using one of their copyrighted photos on your website without their permission. A client recently forwarded one of these emails to us, which made us aware of the backlink scam. Here’s how the email went: Hello there, You are using my client’s image in one of your articles url.com We’re glad that it’s of use to you. There’s no issue if you’ve bought this from one of our market partners. However, if you don’t have the proper license for the image, then we request a clickable image credit link to [Company Name] (clickable link to https://url.com/) at the bottom of your article. You can learn how to properly give attribution here. Unfortunately, removing the image isn’t the solution since you have been using the image on your website for a while now. Feel free to ask any questions that you may have. Regards, [Name]Client Relations Team[Company]
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