Re: Fake Members/Spammers

[Neon]

This has been bugging me.  For the past two weeks, I've been getting submissions like this:

Name: ÁùºÏ²
Email: vbdfe@hotmail.com
Country: Serbia/Montenegro
URL: http://www.xg7899.com
Comments: ÁùºÏ²£¬°×С½ã͸ÂëÖÐÐÄ£¬Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏÔøµÀÈË£¬Ï
£Â¸Ã›ÃÃ¹ÂºÃÂ²Ã—ܹ«Ë¾¡£

I check the email address, but it always comes back as a failure notice.  That and the fact that the email address are always random along with the url.  Is it ok to not add the person?

[Mura]

I've recently had a person trying to join one of my fanlistings. Several things make me think it could be a spammer: first, the name, and the comments, appear to be in chinese, but the person claims to be from Serbia. Secondly, the email adress is vbdfe @ hotmail.com, which, from my experience with blog comments spam, is a clear indicator of spam. Also, the website they're submitting is http:// www . xg7899 . com (didn't want it to make an actual link, in case it IS god knows what). Again, with the suspicions and being afraid to click on a fishy URL. Lastly, I ran the comments through a translator. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it seemed to be about chinese travel agencies.

Now, I know I could just not link the site, but the thing is I DO suspect this is a spammer and not an actual fan joining.

What should I do?


EDIT: I just noticed that Neon just posted with a very similar problem... I'm sorry about having made what amounted to a double post. At least I know it's not just me with this problem.  :rolleyes:

[Danielle]

I've combined your topics, since they regard the same issue.

Basically, if you feel fairly confident that these are spammers, and the email addresses are obviously not valid, you may delete them. Email validity is a requirement for most fanlistings, my own included, and if the email fails, I delete them. If you aren't quite sure (this seems a pretty clear-cut case, especially since the submissions for you two are identical), you can always hide/delete their URL. I certainly wouldn't risk linking them. ^_^;;

Normally, of course, the network doesn't condone deletion of members, unless they are submitting obviously false information (fake countries), or their email address is invalid. In your case, the email definitely looks spam-tacular. :rolleyes: