BBB Warns about Scams Circulating on Pinterest

Golocalprov.com reported on 4th March, 2014 stating that Better Business Bureau (BBB) is advising consumers to be cautious of unusual activity or scams on 'Pinterest', a well-known social networking website.

Notably, BBB gives free of charge business dependability reviews on firms in US and Canada.

As per the latest advisory of BBB, scams begin with a fake email informing potential baits about a 'pin' mutually shared with them by one of their close friends featuring a celeb, beauty photographs, giveaways, info-graphics and diet images.

These are always engineered to trick Internauts to click on the links contained in the emails which then lead to a wide variety of sites but none of these sites are good.

Such sites advertise online stores which sell fake products or bogus news websites promoting job openings, diets and pharmaceutical items.

BBB warns that scammers use various tactics to achieve access to your email account and may take benefit of security vulnerabilities in third-party applications that connect to Pinterest (that which automatically post your pins on sites like Twitter) or introduce malicious code into the "Pin This" buttons on other sites.

So how can you basically protect yourself from such malicious schemes? Firstly, if you find spam pins, report to 'Pinterest' by clicking on the flag icon. Secondly, if you are suspicious of account hacking or if you might have employed a malicious app then reset your password by clicking on your name at the apex of Pinterest webpage. Then click Settings and create a new and complex password.

Thirdly, always log out of Pinterest when you are not using it.

Fourthly, only login to Pinterest.com and the official mobile application of the website and avoid identical websites using a domain name such as www.pinterest.something.com as these websites are not associated with Pinterest.

Besides these, you have to be careful while linking your account to other social media because if crooks get in then they can effortlessly share spam pins on your Facebook and Twitter feeds also.

Finally, before repining you must hover on the image and confirm destination link analogous to the information on the pin. Scammers have been replacing links in trendy pins with links to maligned websites.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/13/2014