strange spam

breezy99 · Share | #1 (**permalink**) 04-20-2011, 10:28 AM

Lately, I keep having people sign up for my forum leaving messages for people about having a relationship with them. We ban these people and then they sign up again with a different user name. What boggles my mind is that I have received messages from these people directly soliciting me in response to banning them. I have yet to figure out what they really want from members on my site. If they are really looking for a relationship, they are picking the wrong type of forum. I'm thinking there's an eventual phishing expedition involved. Has anyone been through something like this? Thanks.

robjones · #2 (**permalink**) 04-20-2011, 10:32 AM

Quote:

I'm thinking there's an eventual phishing expedition involved.

I'm pretty sure you're right. I've seen a bit of "relationship" spammer activity here, some by PM, some in the public messages section, and I get them in emails all the time (which I just forward to our tech with instructions to quit giving my email addy to his one-night-stands).

Dan Williamson · #3 (**permalink**) 04-20-2011, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robjones

I'm pretty sure you're right. I've seen a bit of "relationship" spammer activity here, some by PM, some in the public messages section, and I get them in emails all the time (which I just forward to our tech with instructions to quit giving my email addy to his one-night-stands).

Actually it's just me e-mailing you asking for a good time Rob... Do these people have the same IP, or are they just bots from phished machines?

robjones · #4 (**permalink**) 04-20-2011, 01:29 PM

Not sure about the emails. The ones I've seen in here are generally associated with spammers of another variety and tend to resolve to IDs we've booted before. Havent seen enough of it here for it to be a huge issue... we have the tools to undo their work as needed.

breezy99 · #5 (**permalink**) 04-21-2011, 07:25 AM

It's a pretty pathetic tactic, don't you think?

Dan Williamson · #6 (**permalink**) 04-27-2011, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by breezy99

It's a pretty pathetic tactic, don't you think?

All Spam is pretty pathetic, unfortunately people don't have the general ethical mindset that many people have.

tangi2 · #7 (**permalink**) 04-28-2011, 02:29 AM

hi robjones,
technically about it,

people who spam is using xrumer, but I already know you know that

,
anyway there is no way to stop these people, I have this software but I'm not using it to send emails to other member, it costs me 540$, but I can say it worth the money ONLY if you know how to use it.

Sending mails to all registered members here is really easy, a few clicks in the software and it's done.

obviously, that's why you moderators are there

breezy99 · #8 (**permalink**) 04-29-2011, 08:26 AM

It would be one thing if you could just block their ip, but I guess people with programs must use proxy servers.

DigitalAlien · #9 (**permalink**) 05-01-2011, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Sending mails to all registered members here is really easy

Xrumer is good for some spam, but definitely isn't anything special. It is the best in its field, but still sucks. Sure, you could signup for a forum to mass mail or mass message - but that isn't going to help if the admin has to the forum set so you can only send X amount of emails/messages per hour. Ideally Xrumer could have a feature that allows for multiple signups on a single forum ans syncs sent messages to make sure none are double-sent.

@breezy99 You are correct, any decent forum posting software is going to have the option for rotating proxies as well as pulling proxies from a cloud if your imported ones stop working.

Also, what type of forum software are you using?