Forum Spammers

[Mike Phillips]

Forum Spammers


I've been running discussion forums professionally now for 17 years. 7 years at Meguiars and now 10 years at Autogeek. For the life of me, I've never figure out why spammers waste their time.

Each morning, during work days or off days, I check the Pending Accounts list in the Admin Panel for new and pending accounts. All new accounts have to be approved before a person, (or a spammer), can make a post on this forum. I also do it throughout the day on the fly and usually before I go to bed at night. (there's a business reason for this for the owner of Autogeek).

While approving new accounts and removing spammers in the Pending Accounts queue there's also another list or pending queue and that's for people, (or spammers), that have registered BUT have not confirmed their account by clicking on the automatically generated e-mail that is sent to each new registration to verify they are a real person by clicking the link inside the e-mail. All of you reading this that are members either did this and know what I'm talking about or I did it for you as I know some of you did not do it on your own.

So this morning, as normal I approved new human beings and removed spammers in the Pending Accounts queue and then I checked the list for people that have NOT confirmed their accounts. Most of these, not all but most are usually spammers.

This morning they were all spammers. And this is just the spammers from about 10:00pm last night when I cleared out the spammers at that time.


Spammers

http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/722/spammers.jpg


Rarely does a spammer get on this forum. I'm pretty good at verifying real human beings from Spambots and the rest of the world-wide spammers, but once in a while a spammer does get through. Even when a spammer DOES get through and post their spam on our forum none of our forum members are dumb enough to click on their links or buy they shoes, phones or pills.


It's simply ridiculous as well as a picture type of the movie Idiocracy.


And of course, all spam accounts are removed, their e-mails, IP addresses included in our forum database for spammers and then also sent to StopForumSpam.com



:dunno:

[Paul A.]

Thank you, Mike. Your efforts in combatting the bad is appreciated by the good.

[DetailKitty]

Ugh, I DO NOT envy you!

[Belo]

i've had 4 calls in the last 2 days about my social security number being cancelled...

[Mike Phillips]

Like I mentioned....

I check and then approve or remove people on the fly each day. Just approved 6 new members since this morning that are real people and just removed 3 new spammers.


http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/722/spammerss.jpg



It's like a game they never win.


:laughing:

[DetailKitty]

i've had 4 calls in the last 2 days about my social security number being cancelled...

canceled??????

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

[Kamakaz1961]

Way Cool in keeping things in check!

KEEP ON ROCKING!

[Belo]

canceled??????

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

yep. too bad that didn't happen when i had all those college loans!

[DetailKitty]

yep. Too bad that didn't happen when i had all those college loans!

right???

[TTQ B4U]

Mike, can you help with the telemarketing calls I get on my cell phone? Haha!

[MrNiceGuy]

Thank you for providing this great forum. Your efforts are truly appreciated!!!

[Mgavin1985]

I work for social security. We will never call you SSA or any other agency will use the post office to send letters. There is one exception to this rule if you applied online on our website SSA.gov for retirement or Medicare you can be called within 30 days of applying online we are making sure it you and it is part of the way we avoid fraud ourselves. To avoid the nightmare of identity thieft and I mean nightmare. Don’t kid yourself you will spend a large portion of your remaining life attempting to make sure accounts aren’t opened in your name, battling credit and financial institutions attempting to convince them it wasn’t you that bought 10 IPhone X’s in Miami. You will dealing with never ending hassle.

If you applied online and you are contact by someone claiming to be from SSA you may ask the agent to provide the date you applied online to know you are on a secure connection. Do not trust your caller ID either there is a way that your caller ID can be manipulated to show up as a Police Department, SSA, IRS and even Mike Phillips

Detailing is hard work I doubt there are many 65 year olds doing a two step you should sit down with your grandparents and parents and have this discussion so they are aware of these scams.

Elderly people have been scammed out of large sums by these same scam outfits that pretend to be Microsoft or Apple or Mcafree. They contact by phone or email and convince the elderly that there computer has issue they gain access by allowing the scammer to remotely asscess their computer laptop or tablet. All you password banking info is quickly download they then drain all you savings and checking accounts. Most I’ve seen taken is over $120,000 that was done so professionally (hard to explain), that the money that was gone was considered a legal transaction (to hard to explain) just life changing for that family and there up coming generations it was life altering for that poor family. These people are not a billy bob from West Virginia that professionals that make a living doing this.

[PaulMys]

I actually had one (a few years ago, I do not answer my phone for any unknown number now) that claimed to be from SS.

They told me my SS # had to be changed because "SS lost all of their data" and needed to assign new numbers.

Mind you, the voice on the other side of the line was a DEEP India accent.

When I was laughing and toying with him, he started to threaten me with arrest that very night.

Not really "threatening" because it was obvious he was reading a script.

I will not elaborate on my entire conversation, because AGO is a family-friendly site.

But let's just say there is one citizen in India that had to go therapy for a few weeks.............. ;)

[TTQ B4U]

Mind you, the voice on the other side of the line was a DEEP India accent. When I was laughing and toying with him, he started to threaten me with arrest that very night. Not really "threatening" because it was obvious he was reading a script. I will not elaborate on my entire conversation, because AGO is a family-friendly site.
But let's just say there is one citizen in India that had to go therapy for a few weeks.............. ;)

LOL. You're not alone. I do the same but usually they are Middle Eastern Sounding. I don't go crazy like a buddy of mine does on his tirades with them but I do have fun. The room of scammers probably just hate us Americans even more because of our responses. LOL!

[PaulMys]

LOL. You're not alone. I do the same but usually they are Middle Eastern Sounding. I don't go crazy like a buddy of mine does on his tirades with them but I do have fun. The room of scammers probably just hate us Americans even more because of our responses. LOL!

Lol, I agree!

I just have to post one little blurb from my call..........

As I was getting him more & more agitated (after he threatened my arrest), I yelled out "Oh Crap! the police ARE here!!"

His response was: "See? I told you!!" Lmao.