How to i report PM spammers

[]SK[]

Seems you have a spam bot on your site...

Hello,

I know a *.com website (Homepage is PR9), which sells "site-wide" links with anchor text at just $25 / Month only. That PR9 website has atleast 21 PR8 pages, 137 PR7 pages and many more inner PR6 and PR5 pages. That website sells all these 159++ PR9-to-PR5 backlinks, including it's PR9 homepage links, at $25/month only. You can "instantly" add your backlinks there just after payment.

I will tell you this website and their payment page, if you pay me a meagre $24.99 only.

To instantly download this information about this PR9 site and it's payment page, plz order from the following link, which will later re-direct to the secure https://paypal.com/ website : http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=392767

You can instantly download this PR9 website and it's payment page info right after the order.

ThankYou.

Martin Brown.
Chapeltown,
Sheffield S35 2PY
Britain.

User: terribrown84

[j4ck455]

Let me know if you want a screenshot of the PM spam I received from "mko smith" - it was sent to at least 5 recipients [myself included]...

[Floris]

Thank you for reporting this, we will look into it.

[Floris]

You can forward it to me.

[j4ck455]

You can forward it to me.Thanks, PM forwarded :).

[HeyJeeB]

I got one too.

[henners]

me too, although mine was from "pku smith" :)

I hate spam :(

[jeffinj]

got one from 'zbd smith'

[j4ck455]

Maybe a ban on the spammer's IP address(es) might help in the short-term.

[antiekeradio]

got the very same PM from user "monica9385"

I hope you are able to stop this :)


greetings, Wouter

[AtomicSolutions]

I got the same from:
yanflemming45

[Jupp]

Same here from awd smith (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member.php?u=205780).

[Zachery]

We're aware of the problem, thanks.

[Hunter123]

Same Here.....


Hello,

I know a *.com website (Homepage is PR9), which sells "site-wide" links with anchor text at just $25 / Month only. That PR9 website has atleast 21 PR8 pages, 137 PR7 pages and many more inner PR6 and PR5 pages. That website sells all these 159++ PR9-to-PR5 backlinks, including it's PR9 homepage links, at $25/month only. You can "instantly" add your backlinks there just after payment.

I will tell you this website and their payment page, if you pay me a meagre $24.99 only.

To instantly download this information about this PR9 site and it's payment page, plz order from the following link, which will later re-direct to the secure https://paypal.com/ website : http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=392767

You can instantly download this PR9 website and it's payment page info right after the order.

ThankYou.

Martin Brown.
Chapeltown,
Sheffield S35 2PY
Britain.

[KeithMcL]

I just got one from 'bat smith'.

[Zachery]

We're aware of the problem and we are looking into it.

[basilrath]

same here they are bombarding the memberlist

[Floris]

We're already aware and have banned the users. If you're still getting privmsgs that are clearly spam feel free to forward them to me.

[Floris]

[threads merged]

[bloodwrath]

this spammer sent me 3 messages

Dear bloodwrath,
You have received a new private message at vBulletin Community Forum from terrybrown45, entitled "Hello".
To read the original version, respond to, or delete this message, you must log in here:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/private.php
This is the message that was sent:
***************
Hello,
Here are 3 PR7 backlinks (HomePage is PR10) absolutely FREE for you :
adobe.cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=44&catid=185&threadid=1055117&enterthread=y
adobe.cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=44&catid=185&threadid=1111323&enterthread=y
adobe./cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=44&catid=185&threadid=1259799&enterthread=y
Only free-register and post your backlinks with "anchor texts".
I know a *.com website (Homepage is PR9), which sells "site-wide" links with anchor text at just $25 / Month only. That PR9 website has atleast 21 PR8 pages, 137 PR7 pages and many more inner PR6 and PR5 pages. That website sells all these 159++ PR9-to-PR5 backlinks, including it's PR9 homepage links, at $25/month only. You can "instantly" add your backlinks there just after payment.
I will tell you this website and their payment page, if you pay me a meagre $24.99 only.
To instantly download this information about this PR9 site and it's payment page, plz order from the following link, which will later re-direct to the secure PayPal website : payloadz/go/sip?id=392767
You can instantly download this PR9 website and it's payment page info right after the order.
ThankYou.
Martin Brown.
***************

[Bema Jinn]

I got one too, but the guy had already been banned before i got to read the message.

[simsim]

How do you report PM spammers? Is it really unintuitive to think of forwarding such PMs to a moderator? I don't know why people are opening new threads to announce their reception of spam!

[Floris]

You can forward them to me.

[Kensino]

People are sending me private message asking for money and credit card. I deleted some but I got another one now.

[Gladius]

I think that the increase of this PM spam crap even on the official vB board obviously indicates a pressing need for more control over PMs, because vBulletin provides us with nothing to be able to stop PM spam. There should be an easy ability to restrict new members from sending out PMs until they have X number of public posts, at the least.

Unfortunately, the way vB is set up, right now you can only block their sending AND receiving at the same time, but this is shooting yourself in the foot. If you send welcome PMs (and we do), this means that they don't get a welcome PM. The PM permissions really need to be split between send and receive.

[Onimua]

Forward the PM to Floris.

[simsim]

Are you talking about vbulletin.com's forums or vBulletin the software? This thread is about spam PMs on these forums. What you've suggested is doable in vBulletin already using its promotion system.

[Gladius]

No, it's isn't. Read my post above again.

[Floris]

Users can use the promotion system, and there are staff on forums who people can forward the privmsg too. Even with the biggest tools and all features that people want there will still be spammers who manually register and build up a reputation and then mass spam a forum. I've had spammers who registered in 2004 and only spammed in 2007 for some reason.

[Floris]

[More threads merged]

[simsim]

No, it's isn't. Read my post above again.
Ah.. Welcome PMs.. I stand corrected.

[j4ck455]

How do you report PM spammers? Is it really unintuitive to think of forwarding such PMs to a moderator? I don't know why people are opening new threads to announce their reception of spam!LOL :D.

I cannot speak for anyone else that created such a thread, but the reason I created such a thread [later merged into this thread], is that I looked at the list of mods (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showgroups.php) to see who was online at the time to forward the p.m. spam to, and couldn't tell who was online due to hidden status - I could have tried to forward the p.m. spam to all mods [5 at a time], but I thought it would be quicker to simply create a thread - knowing that one or more mods are likely to be online and would respond :).

BTW, nothing wrong with hidden status, I use it myself on the forum that I'm an admin of.

IMO a possible solution to abuse of the vB p.m. system - not just spam but also scamming via p.m. as well as insults being hurled in private, would be to provide a "Report Bad Private Message" button that would send an exact copy of the received p.m. - unfortunately moderating in the private messaging realm is extremely problematic since there are always 2 sides to a private message exchange, but such RBPM functionality might help a bit.

[Kimmi]

I got one too from "sat smith" i seen you already taken care of it.. should i still forward it?

[Floris]

We got that user banned, tnx for the report.

[simsim]

I could have tried to forward the p.m. spam to all mods [5 at a time], but I thought it would be quicker to simply create a thread - knowing that one or more mods are likely to be online and would respond :).
It looks that you hate spam with passion, jackass! :D

BTW, nothing wrong with hidden status, I use it myself on the forum that I'm an admin of.
This is really irrelevant to this thread, but it generally has been discussed many times. If you're the only admin of your own forum, I think using the Invisible Mode will made unpleasant thought on your members as if you're hiding form them.

RBPM functionality might help a bit.
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=258440