Scammers soliciting strange things

[mjm1905]

I wanted to share some of the recent scams that my advertisers received. I started banning the IP addresses on the Server side:

213.136.113.89 - Sent a message today saying he or she had millions and needed someone in the US to open a Bank Account for him or her.

192.116.116.102 - I don't even know how to explain what this person was doing. Said he was interested in items, but requested some strange info from them.

I seem to have lost a couple of these. I would appreciate if people could add to this. Together we can make our sites much more enjoyable.

[admin]

I wanted to share some of the recent scams that my advertisers received. I started banning the IP addresses on the Server side:

213.136.113.89 - Sent a message today saying he or she had millions and needed someone in the US to open a Bank Account for him or her.

192.116.116.102 - I don't even know how to explain what this person was doing. Said he was interested in items, but requested some strange info from them.

I seem to have lost a couple of these. I would appreciate if people could add to this. Together we can make our sites much more enjoyable.

And possibly suggest a way the script could be changed to combat them...

IP banning doesn't seem reliable at all to us seeing as the IP of any users is and could be changed easily.

[mjm1905]

Thats an interesting point. I was not aware users could change that easilly. I got a hit a couple more times. AOL currently put my site on some type of Blacklist.

All emails from Watch Lists and registration are being returned. It appears that some of their users complained to AOL about these low-characters messages.

I was forced to turn off the E-mail validation feature, but this did not resolve the returned messages for Watch List matches to AOL users.

If anyone goes through this as well, there is a short message from the "AOL Postmaster" that contains a link. You then have to apply to be put on a "White List". It's been a couple days no resolution.

As far as resolving the issue through modifying the software, it seems like an impossible task. I researched the IP Addresses of a couple people that hit my site. The one I happen to catch in the morning, banned the IP immediately, and it seemed to stop him.

One thing I noticed, many of these individuals appear to be from Amsterdam and the Middle East (Pakistan and I think a couple where from Saudi Arabia).

I wanted to ban every country except the US, as that is primary target at the moment. My hosting provider pretty much replied that is a daunting task.

How about some sort of Flood Control. Limiting the number of messages that can be sent to a time frame. Similar to what is applied to forum software. I know that is not a fix, but it could minimize the damage these Internet Vagrants cause. Provided that we are able to catch their messages soon enough as well.

[mjm1905]

My host replied to me about this. Seems the sites that actually got the spam reports where not mine. AOL is blocking all sites that are on the same host.

They suggested that I setup my "SMTP" Mail to send all messages until the issue is resolved. Is there a way to do this?

[admin]

My host replied to me about this. Seems the sites that actually got the spam reports where not mine. AOL is blocking all sites that are on the same host.

They suggested that I setup my "SMTP" Mail to send all messages until the issue is resolved. Is there a way to do this?

We had the same issues with our host and AOL. The host just had to contact AOL directly to work out the issues. Don't see how configuring SMTP could help as it is probably the IP's of the host are banned...and yours is one of those IP's. Do you have your own "box" with your host?

[carpman]

My host replied to me about this. Seems the sites that actually got the spam reports where not mine. AOL is blocking all sites that are on the same host.

They suggested that I setup my "SMTP" Mail to send all messages until the issue is resolved. Is there a way to do this?

We had the same issues with our host and AOL. The host just had to contact AOL directly to work out the issues. Don't see how configuring SMTP could help as it is probably the IP's of the host are banned...and yours is one of those IP's. Do you have your own "box" with your host?


If your IP is owned by your hosting company, which it more then likely is, then you need to speak with them as they are the only ones who can get unblocked.

[mjm1905]

Thanks for the advice. I did talk with my hosting service. It seems things are in the works. AOL contacted me as well. It appears they are backed-up with spam issues. They pretty much told me the same things mentioned here. Moreover, the conversation went far beyond my education of the Internet and Email.

Still has not been resolved. Becoming a bit frustrated with AOL.

I'm not sure about the "Box" question. I can setup E-mail addresses for my Website. I think a couple hundred. The messages are forwarded or I can check them through their "Webmail" interface.

Thanks again.

[strong]

We run a classified site right now and the problem we see often is scammers sending a note to our sellers saying they'll buy a car and they'll send a moneyorder if the person sends them the title. The money order scam being that it is a fake money order and they get the title and then cash the real money order check . . .. People get really sick of this. I think if you implemented an IDverification system . . . like this http://livedeal.com/help/verifiedaccount.jsp

It would deter some of the scamming a bit. Also if users could have a way to report members that are trying to scam them, this might also help deter scammers. Basically any sort of system that can be set up where the community polices itself and users have to pay a little to gain credibility I think will greatly curb scammers

[mjm1905]

You can now force registration on the system. That will help deter people from sending solicitations. Moreover, if they do, you can ban them from the site by suspending their account.

[georgew]

Hey there!

I'm working on the same issues, how do I stop the scammers from signing up?

In studying Craig's list, they have some interesting solutions.

They are able to ban whole domains, such as hostmail.com
or *.info. I think they can also limit how many people sign up
from each domain each day.

They are able to stop robots from signing up for dozens of accounts
by requiring the user read a distorted text box, something a robot
cannot do...

They have a feedback system allowing people to vote to cancel ads,
and/or notify the admin that a bad ad needs attention. Three buttons
vote for deletion, and one simply flags the ad for the admin to review.


How can we accomplish these things with geoclassifieds?


George

[geomodules]

The only sure system would be to put all mail sent out on hold until the admin reviews them and then send them out. A little work on the admin but it would be perfect.

What also would have to be added is maybe some check mark graphic that would display on the left that this one user sent out 50 emails. This way we have dertermined it is a scammer you can check mark all messages from this user and delete them. Making the job a little easier on the admin.

Also a flood protection installed. To where you set the time on a post. So you set it to 3 minutes and user can not reply to another ad for 3 minutes. This would slow it down. But if you incorporate both these ideas the system would full proof.

[georgew]

Expanding on the idea...

If you get more than X messages from an IP address in an hour, quaranteen them all untill the admin reviews them. In case spammers change IP's constantly (I've seen them use as many as 12 IP's to push the same spam message in a period of seconds) this won't help much
without a lot more work.

If you put a way to stop the robots from being able to fill in the form, like a distorted text key, that would slow them down.

A mailback verification where the message was quaranteened untill the user clicked a link that was mailed to them would help too. Just make sure the URL isn't predictable. If the URL is predictable, this won't stop the spammers, so a random cookie is needed.

[danzo]

sigh...I don't see any progress from geo after all these months of discussions and suggestions on curbing/administering spams...

Spams management and search-optimization/url-mod-rewrites are two of the most recurringly-discussed topics in this forum...
Ironically, these are key foundations that we love to put aside while we strive for more newer fancier features...

[georgew]

Well, this is a serious issue, the softeare to fix it is out there.

First imressions are everything. I have a /very/ popular domain.
I will get spammed relentlessly if there is nothing but a form in the way.

I have a similar feedback form on my page now, and it only sends mail to me, and the spammers have gone to the trouble of writing a spider that looks for people running the same content manager just to send them one email spam. I get several a day. If I had 5000 classified ads up, I would get 10's of thousands per day. I have a nice domain that will attract a lot of attention, please help make that a good thing guys!
Right now it is the reason we aren't on-line yet.

Small domains that only get a few thousand visits a day are not such a problem, but this can't be put up in front of a high-volume onslaught.

I would rather have real email than a form, I already know how to block spammers from email. But that form is spam bait without a robot blocker.
No security whatsoever.

[mjm1905]

Requiring registration and banning IP addresses seemed to work well for me. I have a large IP ban on the site at the moment. It takes a bit of homework, but there are lists that provide proxy server IP's, ban the ones that are good. Most of the soliciting seems to come from a proxy for some reason.

[Ivillages]

How about some sort of Flood Control. Limiting the number of messages that can be sent to a time frame. Similar to what is applied to forum software. I know that is not a fix, but it could minimize the damage these Internet Vagrants cause. Provided that we are able to catch their messages soon enough as well.

Done!
We just completed the development and testing of our new Geodesic Flood Control script. It requires that any visitor wait a specific amount of time before being able to send another message via the Contact Seller or Notify a Friend contact forms.

Package includes the script and instructions. You can find out more and purchase online at our website at http://www.interactivevillages.com/webdev/geodesic/geodesicmodules.php

Bob

[Ivillages]

We just posted a new Geoscript that puts all "Contact Seller" form results into a quarantine for the site admin to review prior to sending to seller. The Geodesic Email Buffer Filter provides Admin ability to stop spammers by quarantine, preview and approve/delete messages sent to sellers via the Geodesic Contact Seller form. This tool also allows the Admin to add the sender's IP to the Ban IP list in the Enterprise version.

The script includes a management page that will:
1. Quarantine all messages sent from the Contact Seller form
2. Allow you to view the message content via a popup window and shows sender IP address, time sent, From address, To address, subject and message
3. Editing tools include Approve, Ban IP, Delete Message
4. Turn Buffer On/Off, as well as set a time limit that unreviewed messages will be forwarded without review. This feature is useful if you cannot get to the admin page for a specific period of time and don't want to hold-up your seller's inquiries.

More info and pricing available at http://www.interactivevillages.com/webdev/geodesic/geodesicmodules.php