Recent Scam Attempt via PMs to Members

[chasfm11]

As a moderator on a diesel truck website, well done!

Thanks.

We rely on our 17,000+ valued members to alert us to nefarious activity on the board.

I sent Keith a PM as soon as I received the spam PM sent to me. I guess that I never expected them to try a PM route either.

And now I'm out a million bucks. Shucks. I could have used to to pay the bill for the US Treasury scam that hit our home phone answering machine again today.

[baldeagle]

I don't know if the board has the capability, but I set up the Stovebolt site so that members are moderated until they've had four posts approved. While under moderation they cannot PM and cannot use a signature. This goes a long way toward cutting down on spammers and scammers. We also approve all applications, so we catch a lot of scammers at that point, but that might be more than you want to take on.

[jrs_diesel]

We manually approve all new members as well. That alone significantly cut down on the amount of spammers. It takes more time, and is not as automated as just validating an email and using CAPTCHA. We also lookup IP addresses, catch more spammers too. A majority of them are in other countries, and that helps us weed them out. Especially with our forums subject matter, Dodge Rams with Cummins diesel engines, not a lot of them were sold overseas.

[Skiprr]

I don't know if the board has the capability, but I set up the Stovebolt site so that members are moderated until they've had four posts approved. While under moderation they cannot PM and cannot use a signature. This goes a long way toward cutting down on spammers and scammers. We also approve all applications, so we catch a lot of scammers at that point, but that might be more than you want to take on.

That capability does exist, but our problem with the option is shear numbers. In the first eight days of this year alone, we've had 135 new members register. The resources required to monitor and approve all initial posts would mean, essentially, a full-time paid position. To get an idea of the scope of this Forum (that Charles thought, when he originally created it on December 22, 2004, might, might garner 200 members ) just scroll to the bottom of the main page. Over 17,000 members and counting, and over one million posts.

Your few, friendly, neighborhood moderators are ducks. We try to look serene on the surface, but underneath we're paddling as fast as we can.

We can't read all 76,500 Topics every day. That's why we rely on the best, most law-abiding members in the world to alert us when they see something that shouldn't be here.

[RPBrown]

I have said this several times in the past but I think we have some of the best and most diligent Moderators around and I thank you for watching our 6