Ugly Spam PMs

[Guest]

[Tower]

I guess i'm not the only one who got these Spam-PMs from our newest member CF. 

It's enough that i get emails with spam. But this ...     

[RupT]

No you're not,  i got two from this twat!!! 

Mods, can we please do something about this new member please?? ta

[blackcat20]

I got two as well; have already PMd Roz about it...

[Tower]

I'm afraid, the problem is not deleting this user. The problem will be how to avoid that somebody (or this one) will do it again and again with a new name. 

[ferdinand_the_yak]

In lieu of Roz, I have banned both this person's ID and IP address.

Any other would be spammers, be warned that we are able to identify where you are posting from and it does not take much digging for the proper authorities to track you down.

[Tower]

Thanks, sounds good.     

[blackcat20]

Thanks Jo 

[mcgonagall]

i actually open the message when my son was watching gggrrrrrrr

why would someone go to all that trouble  of sending it  to all of us

[Roz]

Hi everyone. This is most unpleasant. Our apologies to everyone, and I'm trying to get the PM mass-deleted so that no more young eyes are corrupted... so please every Shacker - roll over and have another 5 minutes in bed before you check your PMs

For the past week I have been deleting new 'spam' members. Our web-monkey thinks that it's not actually a person doing this, but an automatically set up spam program.

For the moment all new members will have to be personally approved by me, Mark or Jo, which will mean a lengthening of the sign-up process (sorry about that but it's the easiest route to a safer shack for the moment), but we're working on it.

If you signed up in the past week and had your account deleted it was because your IP was showing up as a Russian based IP (although interestingly enough Mr Farrel originated from Hawaii), please email us through the 'contact us' section in the price guide and we'll ensure you can sign up this time.

http://www.theyakshack.co.uk/tradingcards/index.php?page=contact

Thanks for your patience with us on this.

[Nienna]

I'm the lucky recipient of two of these whatever-they-are (I get an email notification whenever I get have a PM waiting for me) - I thought I'd log in and check to see what's what!
I'll just delete mine Roz, no worries.

I suppose the Shack being of much higher profile than any of us ever thought it would be, means we're an easy target for these types of no-hopers with too much time on their hands ... sad gits ...

[Roz]

Can you delete Jedi's as well pls Jules?

I've just been VERY ruthless at deleting members (now that no one new can join - any past usernames could have been exploited instead), so there's a possibility that a geniune member or two will have been culled. Please just go ahead and sign up again and contact me through the form in the link above.

[Nienna]

Yep, will do Roz I'll go and do it now so he's spared whatever gruesome images have been sent.

*logs back in to her own a/c* ...
Just been and checked and thankfully there weren't any of these PM's in his inbox!
You might have already deleted them before I checked ... unless you have some kind of age filter on here?
Anyway, job done and thanks for the heads-up!

[Roz]

Don't panic - it should have been automatically deleted by Mark now. I was just concerned in case your JediKnight got there before Mark did

[MakTheYak]

OK folks I've cleared out those messages out of everyone's inbox! Sorry for the inconvenience. Also, I've banned anyone coming from an IP address used by Hawaii Telecom (the spammer's ISP). Sorry to any Hawaii based members, it's nothing personal (unless you're the spammer). It seems we're not the only board suffering - there's someone (or maybe a bot) out there which targets forums using the SMF software we're using, doing all the same stuff.

So what I've done:
* Deleted all the junk PMs
* Blocked Hawaii Telecom's IP addresses

Roz has:
* Switched registration mode to manual so us admins have to approve each new member. Quite annoying for both new member and admin but hopefully it'll ensure no idiots get through the net.

I'm going to:
* Get rid of the "Powered by SMF" tag at the bottom of each page so when people google for that we don't show up.

Fingers crossed this marks the end of it!

[savage727]

Add me to the list as well of those who can thank Mr. Farrell for an eye opening morning!!      Some people are about as mature and educated as a slug.      I think this person needs some immediate medical treatment for a brain disorder - I'll bet Jo would know what would work on this "person"!!   

[Roz]

I'll bet Jo would know what would work on this "person"!!

I think I do too - and many of them come from "the Tower" (not German Tower, the Tower of London )

I was thinking more along the lines of the thumb screw, heretics fork, the judas cradle, disembowelment, burning at the stake etc

[ferdinand_the_yak]

I'll bet Jo would know what would work on this "person"!!

I think I do too - and many of them come from "the Tower" (not German Tower, the Tower of London )

I was thinking more along the lines of the thumb screw, heretics fork, the judas cradle, disembowelment, burning at the stake etc

Don't forget the rack!

There's not much you can do about the people responsible for this type of immaturity.

[Roz]

...except hope that they are 'admitted' sooner rather than later.

[savage727]

Hey Mods:

I still have a notification saying I have 2 messages even after the offensive ones have been deleted by Mark.  How can I make them go away or is there something you can do?  It says I have 2 messages, 0 are new.  Thanks.    

[MakTheYak]

Oh whoops... I knew I'd forgotten something! Bear with me while I reset the totals - let me know if it works. I finally removed the footer btw... It's against the terms and conditions of use so no one dob us in, OK? It's just if that's how they're finding us to spam us I'd rather get rid of it.

OK I've reset the totals... any better Savage?