Like all websites, Photrio experiences a permanent onslaught of online attacks, attempts at abuse, scam, spam etc. This remains virtually invisible to regular users since our systems and procedures catch nearly all of it before it becomes visible. However, once in a blue moon, there will be one or two that slip through the cracks. This post is to inform you on what to look out for and how to deal with these cases.
What they're after
We see mainly two flavors of 'successful' attacks. One is simple spam that tries to lure you into clicking an ad link. Evidently, it's best not to click any links that promise 'real women', 'prime real estate at bargain prices', 'salvation for your soul into eternity', 'the best HVAC service/plumber/mechanic in town' and other stuff that's evidently too good to be true. Apart from wasting your time, the pages you land on may infect your computer with malware, or at least spawn an endless series of additional ad popups.
The other class is the actual scam attempt, which usually follows the pattern of a desirable item being offered for sale at a good price, or a prospective buyer wanting to purchase an item from you (if you have anything up for sale). These are a little trickier, because some of them look legit until you look closely.
What to look out for
Basically, anything that (1) looks too good to be true and (2) that seems out of order.
Concerning (1), we sometimes see (nearly) brand new, high-value digital cameras being offered for sale on a forum like this at bargain prices. If the advertised sales price is well below the price levels that you see elsewhere, it's wise to be cautious.
Concerning (2), look mostly for behavioral patterns. Are you being contacted by a user who last posted over a decade ago and now has popped up out of nowhere to offer you a sweet deal? That's probably fishy. Is someone responding to your Want-to-Buy ad with an item that looks similar to what you're looking for, but isn't the correct item? Watch out, as they may have simply searched for photos of what you're looking for and are now feeding you those found-online pics.
Overall, basically use common sense and be cautious.
If an item is being offered for sale to you (either privately or publicly through the forum) and photos are included, have a close look at those photos to see if anything is out of order - also note details in the background/context. You can use reverse image search (e.g. https://images.google.com/ or https://tineye.com/ - the former is more effective) to see if the same photo has appeared on e.g. eBay. This is usually an indicator that something's wrong.
What to do if you think something is scam
We permanently monitor the forum for anything that may be out of order. We also have additional tools with which we can do background checks on forum accounts that help us to prevent and limit attempts at abuse. In cases where we suspect something's not right, we will take restrictive measures against forum accounts that prevent these accounts from being used for malicious activity. In a (very) small number of cases, this results in 'false positives' where we may accidentally lock a legitimate forum user out of their account. In cases like these, please accept our apologies and contact the forum administrator who can re-grant access after a brief check.
What else you can do
Please take the time to secure your forum account as well as you can. Scammers and spammers for the most part use regular forum accounts to conduct their activities. They either make new accounts for this (but they generally don't get very far with this), or they may resurrect old accounts from people who have moved on. You can help us by securing your own account so malicious actors cannot gain control over it (and your persona details to make their scam extra convincing):
What they're after
We see mainly two flavors of 'successful' attacks. One is simple spam that tries to lure you into clicking an ad link. Evidently, it's best not to click any links that promise 'real women', 'prime real estate at bargain prices', 'salvation for your soul into eternity', 'the best HVAC service/plumber/mechanic in town' and other stuff that's evidently too good to be true. Apart from wasting your time, the pages you land on may infect your computer with malware, or at least spawn an endless series of additional ad popups.
The other class is the actual scam attempt, which usually follows the pattern of a desirable item being offered for sale at a good price, or a prospective buyer wanting to purchase an item from you (if you have anything up for sale). These are a little trickier, because some of them look legit until you look closely.
What to look out for
Basically, anything that (1) looks too good to be true and (2) that seems out of order.
Concerning (1), we sometimes see (nearly) brand new, high-value digital cameras being offered for sale on a forum like this at bargain prices. If the advertised sales price is well below the price levels that you see elsewhere, it's wise to be cautious.
Concerning (2), look mostly for behavioral patterns. Are you being contacted by a user who last posted over a decade ago and now has popped up out of nowhere to offer you a sweet deal? That's probably fishy. Is someone responding to your Want-to-Buy ad with an item that looks similar to what you're looking for, but isn't the correct item? Watch out, as they may have simply searched for photos of what you're looking for and are now feeding you those found-online pics.
Overall, basically use common sense and be cautious.
If an item is being offered for sale to you (either privately or publicly through the forum) and photos are included, have a close look at those photos to see if anything is out of order - also note details in the background/context. You can use reverse image search (e.g. https://images.google.com/ or https://tineye.com/ - the former is more effective) to see if the same photo has appeared on e.g. eBay. This is usually an indicator that something's wrong.
What to do if you think something is scam
- Evidently, don't make any payments and don't share any private information about yourself, your online accounts etc.
- Use the 'Report' function to alert us of the problem, and/or send an email to the site administrator (@Sean).
- Verify whatever offer is being made to you by the other party, for instance by asking photos that prove that they are current, not taken from the web etc. However, at the same time, also keep in mind that AI does a really good job at writing convincing texts and producing convincing photos (faked backgrounds, 'handwritten' notes etc.)
- In case of a 'successful' scam (i.e. you have been swindled out of an item/money/etc; identity theft), take your case to the authorities, but please also report the issue to Photrio so we are at least aware of it.
We permanently monitor the forum for anything that may be out of order. We also have additional tools with which we can do background checks on forum accounts that help us to prevent and limit attempts at abuse. In cases where we suspect something's not right, we will take restrictive measures against forum accounts that prevent these accounts from being used for malicious activity. In a (very) small number of cases, this results in 'false positives' where we may accidentally lock a legitimate forum user out of their account. In cases like these, please accept our apologies and contact the forum administrator who can re-grant access after a brief check.
What else you can do
Please take the time to secure your forum account as well as you can. Scammers and spammers for the most part use regular forum accounts to conduct their activities. They either make new accounts for this (but they generally don't get very far with this), or they may resurrect old accounts from people who have moved on. You can help us by securing your own account so malicious actors cannot gain control over it (and your persona details to make their scam extra convincing):
- Use a unique password for each online account you have. Sets of usernames + passwords are often stolen/hacked from forums etc. and end up in lists that are being sold between scammers/spammers. By using unique username/password combinations, you limit the risks of abuse.
- Use two-step verification to sign in to Photrio. This makes it virtually impossible for scammers to abuse your forum account. You can enable this by clicking your username in the top right of the screen, select 'Password and security' and enable two-step verification in the first option shown at the top of the screen.
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