Earlier this week a bookstore based in Southern California reported to the IndieCommerce team that they had received what appeared to be a copyright infringement violation letter. The letter stated:

“Hi!

My name is Sandra.

Your website or a website that your organization hosts is infringing on a
copyright protected images owned by myself.

Check out this official document with the URLs to my images you used at
Bookstore Name and my earlier publications to find the evidence of
my copyrights.

Download it right now and check this out for yourself:
Link to a Google Sites page would appear here...”

The email goes on to mention fines the store would incur if it did not take action. 

Do not download or attempt to open the Google Doc. The file contains a zip file with a ransomware virus. Here are more details on this scam [4].

A few days after receiving the above email, this store received a similar email at their other location. Please alert your staff to this scam.