I'd hoped this may have died and gone away on its own, but it seems that "Melanie" (or whoever she or he really is) is a persistent little scammer that's working hard to screw you over. I've seen this email appear in various clients' inboxes. Always exactly the same format with the site URL changed and he/she uses slightly different names, but the scam is always the same. Get some poor sucker to click on a link to "check out a document listing supposed links to images which are copyrighted". There's a linking to a Google Site. I don't know what's at the end of that, and, frankly, I don't care nor have the time to bother finding out. But you can guarantee it is NOT a list of copyrighted image you are using illegally.

Shock! My site is using copyrighted images illegally!

Don't get me wrong, using copyrighted image without permission is WRONG! 100%. And it CAN cost you money if you do it and get caught. That's why we are carefully about where we source images to ensure they're legit.

But back to the email...

It starts off legitimately sounding. Some poor, hard-working photographer is upset that YOU used

 Remember what (hopefully) your parents taught you? "Don't sign anything till you've read it through!" Totally brilliant advice, but, let's face it, how many of us do? When you signed that life insurance, or car insurance application, did you read ALL the fine print? How about a mortgage or loan doc? You did? Wow, high fives and mega-kudos to you. The fact is, most of us ever read any of the fine print beyond maybe a line or two.

But, if you're signing a loan doc, or, as you will soon learn what prompted this post, a Merchant Services Agreement, you do look at the dollars and cents part of it, yes? And the term? And the penalties (if any) for breaking the agreement early? I think we all do (hopefully!!). But, 1 month, 6 months, 12 months down the track, do we remember what we signed? Perhaps you get the idea where this post may be going....

PayPal is good when you're starting out 

PayPal gets a lot of flak about their "high" fees, and, it's true, their fees are up there with the "best" of them. But they're no worse than most other "convenience" providers such as Square,

 We're all told to be vigilant about internet scams, and to safeguard our online profiles. But, in trying to do this, have we unwittingly exposed ourselves more than we already were? A few years ago, probably through a post on a forum somewhere (I don't remember), I heard about a site called "Have I been Pwned?" From memory, the author of the post touted this as a great way to go and check if your email had been hacked. At the time, there had been a spate of email hack attacks so I went and did a check. Phew! I hadn't been hacked. Now that this latest scam has come around, I have to wonder whether that was a good idea. I mean, really, I had no clue if that site was legit or not. Did I stupidly give hackers a working email address? I haven't linked to the site for a good reason... read on McDuff!

The latest scam is an email giving a password that the author claims to be yours. Interestingly, in one of the 2 emails I've gotten, the password quoted was quite like a password I used about 5-6 years ago (but don't anymore). Initially