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Not surprisingly, those “30 terabyte” SSDs you can buy at Walmart and AliExpress are all a scam

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It’s probably not that much of a surprise to most of us who actually use large storage drives but there seems to be a big trend lately, a whole flurry of drives popping up on sites like AliExpress and even Walmart claiming some pretty insane capacities at an even more insane price. We’ve seen this before with microSD cards from generic brands that claim to be 1TB when they’re not even close, but I haven’t seen it quite this blatant before.

The 1TB microSD card scam is kind of believable because 1TB microSD cards do actually exist and we’ve reviewed samples from SanDisk and Silicon Power here on DIYP. But a 30TB portable SSD? This capacity doesn’t even exist from the big brands yet. How about 60TB? Yeah, I’ve seen those for sale, too. And if the capacity alone wasn’t enough to stick a honking big red flag right in front of your face, what if I told you some of those “60TB” ones were less than $15?

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Scam “photographer” extorts money from famous satirist Bryan Dawe

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Australian satirist, comedian, writer, and artist Bryan Dawe found himself in the middle of a scam that sounds too terrible to be true. In spring last year, he stumbled upon a Facebook post from a “photographer” who was collecting money for her “broken camera.” Dawe wanted to land a hand, organizing a fundraiser for the woman who posed as the photographer who had her camera destroyed.

The whole thing turned out to be a scam. And it escalated so badly that Dawe was forced to close all his social media accounts and he has been receiving extortion threats from the scammers  ever since.

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PSA: Miami Vibes Magazine doesn’t want your photos, it’s a scam

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We recently heard from several photographers who received an email from someone claiming to be the creative director of Miami Vibes Magazine, offering to hire them for a fashion shoot. While the detailed creative brief made the project seem legitimate at first glance, my conversation with the real editor-in-chief of Miami Vibes confirmed that it was indeed a hoax. Let’s take a look at the scammer’s pitch and the warning signs to look out for.

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Photographers and videographers beware: Another scam is going around Instagram

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As a photographer on the internet, I’m sure you’ve heard of plenty of scams people try to pull off. Some of them try to steal your money, and some of them want to hack your account. And sometimes it’s both.

Sadly, these things keep happening, and photographer Michael Trimboli has just spotted a new scam that’s going around on Instagram. If you’re a photographer or videographer, this one’s targeted specifically at you. So, pay close attention and crank up your skepticism to the max.

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Fake tech support scammers are targeting Canon printer owners for hundreds or thousands of dollars

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Gizmodo has uncovered almost two dozen complaints to the FTC over websites posing as Canon scamming them out of hundreds or thousands of dollars. New printer users are a fairly easy target because almost everybody who has a computer has a printer, not just photographers, and the hassles of setting them up and keeping them running smoothly aren’t exactly a secret, to the point of ridicule in popular culture.

So, people often need help setting them up or dealing with issues when they arise. This is what the scammers are taking advantage of, and more specifically, users looking for drivers for their shiny new printer. According to the report, the scam exploits an issue whereby Canon’s official website often seems to be down (although that’s not an issue I’ve seen personally), forcing users to Google alternate download locations.

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Nikon warns content creators of scammers pretending to be Nikon PR

Well, this is an odd turn. Typically, it’s fake “influencers” pretending to be somebody else to try to scam companies out of free gear. This time, though, Nikon has put out an announcement stating that the opposite is true in their case and that people have been contacting content creators on Facebook and YouTube pretending to be Nikon themselves – and possibly other companies.

Nikon says that the scammers “may attempt to gain personal or financial information and exploit it for financial gain”, which is pretty much how all online scams work, but here Nikon says that they’re contacting creators requesting they make a gear using a Nikon camera and offering sponsorship opportunities.

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A new scam hijacks your Instagram profile, asking up to $40,000 ransom

A new Instagram scam seems to be going around, and it’s pretty serious. It’s a good old phishing scam, designed to look just like a message from Instagram. But the scammers behind it will hijack your account and ask for money to give it back to you – and it goes up to $40,000.

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NatGeo doesn’t want you to work for them – it’s another job scam

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Another scam aiming at photographers has been going around lately. Sadly, it’s pretty believable and seems legit, so it’s easy to fall for it. Frederik Trovatten was recently targeted by a scammer claiming to be a National Geographic photographer, and he shares his experience in order to warn all of you.

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Taking part in Instagram giveaways? Beware of this phishing scam

Instagram giveaways have been pretty popular. However, I’ve recently noticed a scam related to these giveaways, aiming at both those who give products away and those who hope to get them. It looks like a phishing scam, and in this article, I’ll tell more about it and how to avoid it.

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