{"id":5900,"date":"2018-01-01T04:11:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T12:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homewiththekids.com\/blog\/?p=5900"},"modified":"2018-01-02T09:55:45","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T17:55:45","slug":"youtube-moderator-scam-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homewiththekids.com\/blog\/youtube-moderator-scam-email\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube Moderator Scam Email"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

I get to start this year off with a lovely new scam email I received. It’s pretty simple. It says I have been made a moderator of a YouTube channel. On mine, the channel is called “Have Win Apple iPhone X Get It From: – (link)” – isn’t that a lovely name??? I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that it was a YouTube Moderator scam email.<\/p>\n

Here’s a screenshot of the email:<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, it really does seem that it comes from YouTube<\/a>. These guys are starting a fake YouTube channel just so they can make people moderators of their channel and try to scam them.<\/p>\n

The link in the channel name is the key to this scam. It shows up as a link in the email. When I checked things out in the Google Product Forums<\/a>, some people had followed it and had even filled out the requested information. Don’t do that, folks. You should know better. Never share your information on sites you don’t trust.<\/p>\n

There does not seem to be a way to keep people from making you a moderator on YouTube as of this writing. With this scam going around, I expect that Google\/YouTube will be looking at things to find a way to control this scam.<\/p>\n

One simple thing they could do is disallow domain names as usernames or in channel names. I don’t know that they would want to do that, however, as I’m sure many legitimate websites name their channels for their domain.<\/p>\n

Better might be to say that you can only be made a moderator of a channel you already follow. This seems like a very simple thing to require to show that a potential moderator has already interacted with the channel in some way.<\/p>\n

What To Do About The YouTube Moderator Scam Email<\/h2>\n

First of all, make sure you know the email is a legit one from YouTube before clicking any links in the email. I looked at this one very, very carefully before I reported it as spam and checked to see if the channel was still open so that I could report it. You don’t want to be tricked into logging in at a fake site. You also don’t want your name as moderator on a scam channel, even when it’s likely one of many, and utterly meaningless.<\/p>\n

If you get this email, don’t overreact. I saw some people on the Google Product Forums who shut down their YouTube channels over this. I think that’s a huge overreaction. There is no indication that your channel has been compromised just because you got this email.<\/p>\n

This scam email is really not a big deal. Hit the “report as spam” link in the email if you like, and go on with your life. YouTube wants to know about these channels quickly so that they can shut them down. They don’t like scams either. You can also go to the channel and flag it as spam if it hasn’t already been deactivated. The YouTube channel in mine had been shut down for violating the TOS. Surprise, surprise.<\/p>\n

It amazes me that scams like this can work, but as I saw on the Google Product Forums, they apparently do, even on people who know enough to go to the product forums. Some ways that amazes me, but that’s just reality.<\/p>\n

Be careful any time you get an email. Don’t trust it just because it comes from a trusted source. This one really did come through YouTube’s system because they found a way to get their fraudulent link in there. But it could just as easily been a phishing email from start to finish. Pay close attention to where a link really goes before you click one in an email… or anywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get to start this year off with a lovely new scam email I received. It’s pretty simple. It says I have been made a moderator of a YouTube channel. On mine, the channel is called “Have Win Apple iPhone X Get It From: – (link)” – isn’t that...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1268,1139,1413],"class_list":["post-5900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scams","tag-email","tag-phishing","tag-youtube"],"yoast_head":"\nYouTube Moderator Scam Email - Home with the Kids Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scammers are using YouTube to send emails claiming that you are now a moderator for their channel. 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