Fraud Review and Extortion Scam Victimizing Photographers Worldwide

A Warning to Photographers

Not My Average Morning

On the average morning I wake up and grab my phone excited to see what has come into my email box while I was sleeping. Normally it is very exciting emails from brides, inquiries from potential clients and reviews from past clients. Today was not the normal - I received an email so threatening that my heart started to race, my face got hot, and my hands went numb.

The Email Threat

At 3:43 AM 2-24-2015 Mohammed Abdullah sent me an email threatening my business, my reputation and my livelihood. I have poured my heart and soul, thousand of dollars (my 401K) and countless hours (an average of 14 hours a day) into my photography business. Here was a perfect stranger threatening to tarnish my reputation. I think I saw red for a minute. Here is the email he sent me:

"I am submitting some scathing reviews about your business. I am using social media such as Google+, YouTube, ripoffreport and Yelp. Today I am working on an American photographer, [name withheld]. You will be covered in the next week or so. Your name and company name with words ripoff, bad quality, and scam next to it is what I’m working on. I do not want money. I want to hurt your photo business to weed out the competition."

This reminded me of a very particular email I received a couple weeks ago from a Jennifer, stating she was “a private investigator and forensic IT investigator offering her services in the event that I received negative comments about my business.” Honestly I ignored this email. This isn't the first time I have gotten emails for scams or "businesses" preying on my success.

On 2-27-2015 I received the second part of the scam from Elena Kagan titled Newborn Photography Session from [email protected].

"Subject: Investigation - Photography business and reputation management.

I’ve read online that many people in the photography field are receiving threats to their online reputation by a competitor. If you have already received such threats (or should you receive these type of threats in the future), please keep me in mind. I can positively identify the culprit and provide their physical and website addresses.

I work as a private investigator and I also do reputation management (pushing negative comments further down search result indexes). I am very experienced with cases like yours. If I cannot help you, you don’t pay me. Please let me know if interested. My rates are very reasonable.

A bad online reputation is like a stain that won’t go away. Sadly, we are judged by what Google says we are. If I see any reviews about your company, I will contact you again. I am here if you need me. Thank you.

Elena"

Interesting enough the real Elena Kagan is a  United States Supreme Court Justice appointed from Massachusetts, appointed by President Obama and Judicial Oath Taken: August 7, 2010. I guess Jenifer changed her name to Elena.

Investigating this Scam

So my husband and I went to work investigating this threat and these emails. Here is what we found out:

This business terrorist is part of an extortion scheme that is threatening photographers from across the world with fraudulent reviews and blackmail. Throughout the United States, Canada, and as far as Australia, photographers received similar threatening emails. Seems like I was not the only photographer receiving both of these emails.

At the same time I reached out to several photography communities I belong to for support, guidance, and any additional information. What these cyber terrorists did not know is our photography community is very tight. We understand competition is healthy and part of what drives our industry. Many of the professional photographers I know operate from the standpoint of "there is a photographer for everyone" and "there is enough business to go around". Yes, we might be competing for the same clients but ultimately we are artists and professionals providing a luxury service. Our clients will pick the photographer that works the best for them or their event. Many photographers, myself included, work very hard to support the industry providing opportunities for training, empowerment and raising the standard of photography. The result was amazing. Photographers shared their experience, provided me with resources and the course of action I should take. I got helpful links to articles and resources to help defend against these threats.

Real Scary Bad Reviews & Libel

But the scary thing is these are not false threats. I touched based with a wonderful and talented photographer friend of mine who was victimized by this scam. Her photography studio was slandered in reviews and victimized by a horribly offensive YouTube video. She has been working since January trying to remove these reviews and salvage her good name. She thanked me for not using her name in my posts trying to educate others and wished that this would not happen to me or any other photographer.

In addition, my husband searched for this user name and found pages upon pages of fraudulent reviews for photography companies. We stopped counting at 30. Here is a link to just one of these fraud review sites and his practice of targeting photography studios.

The Scam

SLR Lounge published a fantastic informative piece about this scam warning photographers about this exact blackmail titled: Beware of New Bad Review Scam Targeting Photographers.  Here is an expert from their article on this scam. In this section they talk about what happens next:

Apparently, the next email that  is set to receive would set the terms of the price it would take to save her business’ reputation. An excerpt from realphotographers.com states they received this:

There are 3 viable options:

1)  I do not recommend this but do nothing.  Ignore the bad comments and hope your potential clients do not see them in Google search results (unlikely).  There is also a great risk that others will see the complaint(s) and add to them anonymously.  You will inevitably lose a lot of business.

2) Hire a reputation management company to suppress all your bad comments.  Their costs are usually $1,000+ and there is no guarantee of success.

3) Hire me one time for only $299 (recommended as this is your service rate for only 1 customer.)  I’ll convince your competitor not to post ANYMORE defamatory comments about you (with supplied proof).  You can keep new and old customers.  I will give you a full refund if the competitor decides to file the complaints AFTER we have made our agreement.  This is not a shakedown of any kind as I am not the author of these complaints.

A bad reputation is like a stain that won’t go away.  I await your replay and hope we can work together today.  Thank you.

The photographer is then bombarded with negative reviews on agencies like ripoffreport.com and iformative.com from people with false accounts (which were traced back to Thailand).

 “BAD REVIEWS” EXTORTION, THREATS, ETC. published on February 12 on realphotographers.com which details this scam and the steps that lead up to the extortion.

Why I Don't Negotiate with Cyber Terrorists

My whole reason for writing this blog post is to continue to shed light on this scam and provide resources for other photographers. We all work way too hard to have this happen.

Eden Bao, a newborn photographer wrote a very informative blog post about this scam titled: Bad Reviews Blackmail Scam Targeting Newborn Photographers. She details the exact steps of this extortion scam and the steps we can take to report such threats. On the comment section of this blog is a whole list of photographers who have received this email or been victimized.

After grounding myself, doing some research, and reaching out to my community, I went on offense. I contacted my local Sheriff's Office who referred me to the Florida Attorney General's Office. I filed a report with the FBI Ic3 including the IP address which can be found in the header of the email. In addition, I filed a complaint report with the FTC.

PetaPixel published a great article on this scam with tons of information. Here are the action steps we can take:

What You Can Do

• Don’t respond to the emails!
• Set up a Google Alert for your business name
• Watch your business on a few different review sites and attempt to respond to the false reviews with a link to this post to educate potential readers, or by submitting “proof” to the review website.
• Contact the Federal Trade Commission via its toll free hotline: 877-FTC-HELP (877-382-4357) or the FTC online complaint form.
• Contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center
• Non-emergency number for your local police department to make them aware of the fraud (larger cities will have a cyber crimes task force or department).

Special thanks to Eden Bao, SLR Lounge, realphotographers.com and Peta Pixel for your wonderful information and articles.

Business Resiliency

We are doing our best to be part of the solution to this threat. Rising Lotus will rise above this threat and continue to provide the best in client services.

Rising Lotus Photography works tirelessly to provide the best in service to our clients. We love our work and truly feel honored to photograph such cherished moments.