Digital Marketing Phishing Scams Aimed at Small Business: Are You Prepared?
That's me (Kristi) hooking a salmon in Alaska.
Small business owners venturing into digital marketing without a trusted advisor should be aware of digital marketing phishing scams, which come in various forms. At Rinehart Marketing, we’ve seen our clients encounter several, and it’s important to stay alert to these schemes. Here are a few common scams that have targeted small business owners.
Fraudulent Invoices for Google Business Listings/SEO Services
Fraudulent PayPal invoice example
I recently met with a local business owner who had been unknowingly paying fraudulent charges for Google Business Listings and SEO services. She assumed these services had a cost. They do not: a Google Business Listing is free, and Google does not sell SEO services. So when invoices appeared in her PayPal account, she paid them—without realizing she was being scammed. This had been happening for years.
Her workload, which included teaching classes, managing inventory, handling billing, and maintaining her website, left little time to investigate each charge. Since she was already paying Google for ads, these additional SEO charges seemed legitimate. Our meeting saved her around $500 per year.
If you receive an invoice via PayPal, scrutinize the details, and ensure the vendor is legitimate. Confirm that the vendor has a valid business address, phone number, and website or email address, and examine the invoice details to ensure you understand what the vendor is charging. Learn more about how to report PayPal invoice scams here.
Tricky Domain Listing Solicitations
Another common scam involves domain listing solicitations that arrive by mail. These letters are cleverly worded to make business owners feel as if their website’s domain is in jeopardy if they don’t pay up. Many small business owners aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of domain management, making them easy targets. Here are some examples.
Here’s the difference:
Domain name registration is the process of reserving your website’s unique web address (like yourbusiness.com) through a registrar like GoDaddy or Squarespace. A domain name serves as the online identity for your business, making it easy for people to find you on the internet. Once registered, you own that domain for the period you pay for, and it needs to be renewed periodically to keep it active.
Business domain listings, on the other hand, are directories where your business’s web address, along with information like your name, address, and phone number (called NAP for short), are displayed for promotional purposes. Scams often come from overpriced services offering to list your business in a single online directory, when much cheaper listing services with a much broader reach are available. A business domain listing service is an important tactic in your marketing toolbox for SEO. It helps with backlinking, which refers to the practice of one website linking to another. In SEO, backlinks are considered a vote of confidence or authority from one site to another, signaling to search engines like Google that your content is valuable, credible, or relevant.
My advice to small business owners?
Register your domain name with the same provider who hosts your website, like Squarespace or Wix (we build websites on both). It makes it much simpler to have a single platform for managing all things web-related.
Turn to services like Moz Local or listing distribution services that start as low as $100/year from Rinehart Marketing for distribution of your business listing through broad and highly reputable data aggregators and directories.
Facebook Page Deletion Threats
Another phishing scam targeting small businesses involves fake Facebook page deletion threats. These messages, sent via Messenger, claim to be from Meta and threaten to delete your page for reasons like trademark infringement. The message will prompt you to click a link to appeal the decision—don’t click it! See below.
To spot a scam, look for these signs:
You can’t view the sender’s profile.
The link doesn’t contain a legitimate Facebook or Meta domain.
If you suspect a phishing attempt, test the link they want you to click on VirusTotal (be careful to only COPY the link. Don’t CLICK it), report the user, and move the conversation to spam.
Having a trusted marketing advisor can help you navigate these scams and save you time and money.
If you’re a small business owner trying to juggle everything, consider outsourcing your marketing to ease the overwhelm. Rinehart Marketing is here to help!
