A growing trend is being used to target individuals and/or companies trying to sell items in places such as Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace.
You'll sometimes see these shortened links in emails that appear to come from someone you know, click that link and your woes will begin.
These links can redirect you to some convincing looking websites where a small bit of malware or a trojan could be dropped into your computer or mobile device and then they've got you.
DON'T CLICK THAT LINK!
You've carefully composed your advert to sell an item such as a phone or computer and along with the usual inane "Is this still available?" messages you might get something similar to the following appearing in your message feed:
Seems straight forward enough.
No matter how much detail you include with your ad they seem to want you to check that your item matches the device that they are trying to show you.
DON'T CLICK THAT LINK!
Originally these shortened links were, and still are, used legitimately where a long web address may take up too many characters or for simplicity and clarity.
As with all good things, the bad guys want to get in on the act and these shortened links are often used as part of a phishing scam.
Unlike a full web address which will give you some idea of where it leads to, these links don't give you any clues.
There are ways of checking if the link is valid at the CheckShortURL website.
Also these links are found in text messages so you're not even safe there!
To keep yourself safe from these scammers and con artists just don't click that link.
