Spam registrations

[ChrisA]

There are currently lots of spam registrations (hundreds every month), and it can be quite difficult sometimes to filter out the real people from the spammers.

It's important not to let the spammers' registrations get accidentally completed, since they tend to wreak havoc - sending hundreds of PMs to people, posting dodgy adverts, and it's a right pain cleaning up after one occasionally slips through.

Equally, I don't want to keep any real people away from the forum.

So if you register, and your registration doesn't get completed (allowing you to post, and read the forums) within a few days, please feel free to send a reminder via the 'Contact Us' page, and I'll get on it as soon as I can. If you can give a hint about who you are, where you dance, or some related snippet of information, it'll be easier to be sure that you're genuine.

Thanks for your patience on this one.

[ChrisA]

Follow up to this...

Registrations by people with emails ending in .biz are now blocked. There are simply too many spammers using .biz email addresses, sorry.

[Merlin]

I'm guessing the "AdminLady" is a spambot too! Sent me a PM with a link to medications www which I didn't click!!! Even sent me the cc addresses it sent to also.

AdminLady was a clue and was an admin like name with zero posts!

[Lynn]

Yes - message from Adminlady was

A virus alert was noticed on your computer.
We highly recommend you to check your computer and perform online virus check at our site immediately

And someone with US as their location.

So unless Chris has moved and had a sex change...

[DavidY]

I got one too...

[KenR]

Originally Posted by DavidY

I got one too...

Me too. I have not clicked on it either

[Mary]

I've just had same PM as well.

Sorry ChrisA I sent you a PM about it but you've probably been bombarded with same PM's.

M

[Baruch]

Me too. And sent ChrisA a PM about it. I guess I should have checked the forum first. Oops!

[ChrisA]

Thanks to everyone that's flagged this one, either in this thread or by PM.

There were quite a lot of PMs to me about this, so hopefully you won't mind me not replying to each one individually.

Spam it was indeed, and my apologies to all the recipients... I thought I'd switched off private messaging for all but the "registered users" group, but it seems that I'd missed one.

It wasn't supposed to be possible to send PMs if you are either unregistered, or not logged in, and I believe that that is now the case.

You should find that any PMs from AdminLady have now gone, and that user has also been summarily deleted.

Just for the record, I'm the only admin on this forum at the moment, so please treat with similar extreme suspicion, anything that slips through the net appearing to be from someone with Admin or Moderation privileges.

Thanks again, and sorry for the inconvenience. I trust no one fell for whatever it was 'on offer'?

[Merlin]

Some forums that I frequent (more often!) require members to have one or more posts before they can send PMs Is this feature available to Admin here? It has helped elsewhere

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Some forums that I frequent (more often!) require members to have one or more posts before they can send PMs Is this feature available to Admin here? It has helped elsewhere

It's a very good idea, but having had a look through the admin options, it doesn't appear to be possible with this version of vBulletin. It's a few years old, now, so it may be that later versions do allow this.

The way I've set it up (hopefully, now that I've had another check through the permissions) is that you can only send PMs once you're a registered user.

Mostly, I seem to be reasonably successful at preventing the spammers from getting registered, so touch wood, the problem should remain very minor.

Anyone that does get through the net (I think it's happened three times in total now) is summarily deleted, along with their PMs and any posts, so hopefully there won't be too much crap that gets through.

[dreadful scathe]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

Anyone that does get through the net (I think it's happened three times in total now) is summarily deleted, along with their PMs and any posts, so hopefully there won't be too much crap that gets through.

On this occasion, at least it reminded me this forum existed - I kept my inane utterings for the less serious forum, I'm sure Chris doesn't mind this in the slightest

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by dreadful scathe

On this occasion, at least it reminded me this forum existed - I kept my inane utterings for the less serious forum, I'm sure Chris doesn't mind this in the slightest

Nice to see some old friends stop by, though. Don't leave it so long next time

And it doesn't have to be serious, as I've said many times.

[dreadful scathe]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

Nice to see some old friends stop by, though. Don't leave it so long next time

And it doesn't have to be serious, as I've said many times.

indeed, although referring to a "less serious" forum implies this one is "more serious", i mean that in a good way, as in "people will take this one more seriously".

[Mary]

Only 3 posts DS?!!!! Don't you think we should see a little more of your acerbic wit over here?

M

[David Bailey]

I didn't get one.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I didn't get one.

At this rate I'm thinking I might start spamming people with PMs myself, if it re-awakens interest from so many people.

It's all the rage on Facebook...

(just kidding, folks)

[KenR]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I didn't get one.

Not important enough Davey mate...

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by KenR

Not important enough Davey mate...

Story of my life.