I got an email this morning that stated it was a DCMA from a lawyer supposedly in Austin, TX and on first glance it looked like it might be legit, but the image and the links to the search with the products I was supposed to have used this image on were not even mine.
I was rash and clicked on the links even though I know better than to click unknown links and I just wanted to put this out there for anyone else that may be a little to hasty to check things out in the same manner. I know we all know better than to click links, but occasionally an impulse gets the better of us and we click them. It was foolish of me to click them without inspecting the email further, but it happened and luckily I was on my iPhone that is pretty well protected and I did not enter any information of any kind.
I just wanted to see what it was, thinking it was possibly something I used in a mockup even though I try to be really careful where I get them even when I pay for them. It opened a page that legit looked like a Zazzle page as well as what looked like an imgur page. It was some kind of light bulb image and I was going to respond to them when I reread the email more carefully and realized that this was most likely a phishing scam.
Anyway, I just wanted to make you guys aware since there were 2 Zazzle links in the email of products and a search results page. If other creators get these kind of emails, hopefully I can save you the hassle and worry of "accidentally" clicking on a link.
It could come from any address, like Barbara said, so just be aware of that type of email from anyone. Inspect it closely.
They wanted me to add an image credit to their client to the products that were using the image and they said taking down the images wouldn't do any good and I had 5 days to comply or legal action would be taken against me. But the products they linked to are not mine. Any lawyer would have done their due diligence and seen that I was not associated with those products and would have sent it to the proper person. They most likely just sent the email out to a bunch of people and I happened to be in the batch. Plus, I should have noticed right away the search terms used in the Zazzle search link was in another language and the lawyer was supposed to be in Austin, TX so it should have been in English. On top of that I also realized the wording they used was not that of a professional. It wasn't bad grammar or anything that obvious, just not polished or professional. There were just a lot of clues there that I should have noticed before I went further. I marked the email as spam and deleted it so I can't be anymore specific than that.
You are very welcome. I could have kicked myself for falling for it even for a minute, but that is all it takes to become a victim of one of these scams and I am still praying that I did not let any malware on my phone, but my son says iPhones are pretty hard to get into, especially since I didn't log in anything or input any data.
The email address it came from was the lawyer'sname @ nationwidelegal.info (I can't remember her name). Apparently this is not new. I found an article from last year about fake DCMA notices from this fake law firm website, but the lawyer's name wasn't the same one in the article. I honestly don't usually click on links barring this time. I am not sure what possessed me to click this time.
I will definitely be even more careful from now on!
