PHOTOGRAPHS - are scammers using yours?

PHOTOGRAPHS - are scammers using yours?

Any image anywhere on the net can be copied/stolen. My advice would be not to post any photographs at all - or at least watermark them so they are useless to scammers or identity thieves

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4613202n

(CBS) Thieves are stealing faces to ply their trade. Well -- pictures of faces posted online, anyhow.

The crooks, based in Nigeria for the most part, use the swiped images in Internet scams. They try to bilk people looking for love, frequently breaking hearts along the way, adding hurt to monetary injury, reports Early Show consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen in part two of her three-part series, "Early on the Case: Stolen Identities."

Koeppen spoke with a man whose picture has become a favorite of online scammers. They claim his image is that of someone whose identity they create for online dating sites. When women looking for love contact the "person," they're eventually asked to send money to help him out. All too often, Koeppen reports, the victims do just that.

She also chatted with two women taken in by such fraud, and an expert on preventing it, then offered suggestions on caution flags that might alert you to such a scheme.