Thalassemia Patients and Friends
Discussion Forums => General Chatter => Topic started by: Andy Battaglia on December 12, 2009, 08:44:16 PM
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I guess with success comes annoyance. I am constantly deleting the accounts of spammers who come to this site and I want everyone to report anyone who spams in an email or in a PM. I understand that hilda4u has sent PMs to people with the type of spam I get dozens of in my email weekly, promising great riches if only you cooperate. People, these are the most obvious internet scams. All they want is your private info, including bank accounts, so they can raid your account. Do not reply to them. Report them to me immediately. I will delete them quickly. No one is out there sharing millions with strangers. If you believe this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I will sell to you very cheaply. LOL
Please, please do not take these criminals seriously but please do report them so I can rid our group of these annoying pests.
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Thanks Andy for you hard work,the PM i read was really funny :rotfl .
Zaini.
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Man and i thought I would get a mountain of gold from south africa someday from some daughter of a billionaire :rotfl :rotfl
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Tariq, as long as I can convince you that it's a scam, it means more money for me. Hehehehe. :rotfl
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I checked my spam in Yahoo mail and the same email was there. It reads like this.
From Miss Aisha Mohammad. aisha_mohammad@btinternet.com
Country: Cote D'Ivoire.
City: Abidjan Ivoire Coast.
Hello dear,
Dear with profound respect and humble submission, I beg to state the following few lines for your kind consideration, I hope you will spare some of your valuable minutes to read the following appeal with sympathetic mind. I must confess that it is with great hopes, joy and enthusiasm that I write you this mail which I know and believe by the faith that it must surely find you in good condition of health. My name is Miss Aisha Mohammad., I am the only Daughter of my late parents Mr.and Mrs Ammar Mohammad. My father was a highly reputable business magnet who operated in the capital of Ivory coast during his days.
It is sad to say that he passed away mysteriously in France during one of his business trips abroad on the 20th May 2008. Though his sudden death was linked or rather suspected to have been masterminded by an uncle of mine who travelled with him at that time. But God knows the truth! My mother died when I was just 6yrs old, and since then my father took me so special.
Before the death of my father on May 2008, he called me and informed me that he has the sum of Six Million, Five Hundred thousand United State Dollars.(USD$6,500,000.00) he deposited in a private Bank here in Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire. He told me that he deposited the money in my name, and also gave me all the necessary legal documents regarding to this deposit with the Bank.
I am just 21 years old and a university undergraduate and really don't know what to do. Now I want an honest and God/Allah fearing partner overseas who I can transfer this money with his assistance and after the transaction I will come and reside permanently in your country till such a time that it will be convinient for me to return back home if I so desire. This is because I have suffered a lot of set backs as a result of incessant political crisis here in Ivory coast. The death of my father actually brought sorrow to my life. I also want to invest the fund under your care because I am ignorant of business world.
I am in a sincere desire of your humble assistance in this regards. Your suggestions and ideas will be highly regarded. Now permit me to ask these few questions:
1. Can you honestly help me from your heart?
2. Can I completely trust you?
3. What percentage of the total amount in question will be good for you after the fund has being transfeered to your account and i come over to meet you ?
Please, consider this and get back to me as soon as possible. Immedaitely I confirm your willingness, I will send to you my Picture and also inform you more details involved in this matter.
Anticipating hearing from you soon.
Thanks and may Allah bless you for your concern to help an orphan like me.
Kind Regards,
Miss Aisha Mohammad.
Please, anyone who got this as a PM, just ignore it. The poster's membership has been deleted and I want to ask everyone to send me a message anytime they get this type of message as a PM, so that I can remove the offender.
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Andy,
I just had the same mail on my hotmail minutes ago. Actually i had them more than 4 or 5 times and used to delete them without even looking to the sender. I didn't think that they were related to the site
I was just wondering why i have been receivng such mails recently :rotfl :rotfl now i know
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Thanx Andy for all this :ty ...
Umair ...
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I just deleted another before he got started. His profile was disgusting. I don't know why we're suddenly attracting so many spammers, but they need to take the hint and get lost.
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:grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin
the PM i read was really funny :rotfl .
:grin :grin :grin That PM :D .... :grin :grin :grin
:grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin :grin
lots of Grins :grin :grin :grin .................
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Dear Andy, How are you?
It had been a long time since i last talked to you...
The mail you got in your yahoo account was very funny :rotfl
i guess that even a simple person can figure out that this is mereley a spam...
with a little work on Business Communication I can surely say that this guy had also read the same subject :)
Seems to be the theme of AIDA i.e. Attention, Interest, Desire and then Action..
It is also very embarrassing to use such kind of unethical ways to simply fool the innocents. but the point is that they don;t take it as unethical. :(
Fouad
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Fouad,
I get emails like that every day. By now, I should be the world's richest man from all these millions.
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Andy,
You can add another title to your introduction as 'AMLO' Anti Money Laundering Officer. By the way, this is a special tilte given to all AML officers in North America who monitors any suspicious activity in the Financial Institutions. :biggrin
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LOL. I am watching a couple new "members" for the inevitable coming spam.
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Holland is the best country in the world!
Even though you havent participated, you still win in their lottery! I love it!
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Scaam mailzz... its something to b handle seriously :D ... wat a funny act that was .. lolzzz , i still dont beleive that happened :D ..
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Mystery to be Solved :
I don't know why we're suddenly attracting so many spammers, but they need to take the hint and get lost.
Most important Clue:
<<<<My name is Miss Aisha Mohammad., I am the only Daughter of my late parents Mr.and Mrs Ammar Mohammad. My father was a highly reputable business magnet who operated in the capital of Ivory coast during his days.>>>>>
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Thinking...
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Still thinking....
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Andy, maybe you attract spammers, because you are a business MAGNET who makes millions everyday?
:grin
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lolzz........ :rotfl :rotfl :rotfl .....
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Fouad,
I get emails like that every day. By now, I should be the world's richest man from all these millions.
i guess the more frequently we use our email id the more spammers attack. :)
You are, no doubt, a richest man....... You have all our prayers and best wishes for doing what you are doing. :hugfriend
Fouad
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I wonder what the spammers think as both their posts and their membership vanishes before their very eyes. Most are caught within minutes of posting. :rotfl
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Well they must be thinking "We are not alone brothers, forum has eyes" :rotfl
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The spammers are getting quite foul recently and I am deleting their posts immediately and banning the posters. Fortunately, I have been watching the group closely whenever a new member joins and I have been able to delete this garbage before most have been exposed to this trash. There are some very disturbed people on this planet.
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Due to the extremely offensive nature of some of the recent spam posted here (I think I got to it before anyone else saw the worst), I have made a change to the registration process. Members can no longer confirm their registration by clicking an email link. All new members will have to be approved by the administrators (me or Danielle). All suspect members will be matched against lists of known spammers. Anyone on these lists will automatically be rejected. This should cut down greatly on the number of spammers who become confirmed members.
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Thanks Andy, this is a great idea
Manal
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Thanks Andy, You have been doing so much hard work,and these spammers are such a nuisance :mad .
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Due to the extremely offensive nature of some of the recent spam posted here (I think I got to it before anyone else saw the worst), I have made a change to the registration process. Members can no longer confirm their registration by clicking an email link. All new members will have to be approved by the administrators (me or Danielle). All suspect members will be matched against lists of known spammers. Anyone on these lists will automatically be rejected. This should cut down greatly on the number of spammers who become confirmed members.
:clap
Great Job Andy, Well done.
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Yes Andy this change will definitely work. You are so concerned and committed :)
God Bless You!
Fouad
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Well they don't seem to be catching on, but with the new registration approval system, they are also not being approved. We have actually had more spammers try to join this week than real members.
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I'm brand new but not a spammer (right hand raised) just a mom looking for info. Good luck with your hunt though.
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I would strongly encourage that members tell friends to add a bio when registering for this site, as this will expedite their approval. All .ru email addresses will be rejected unless a bio is filled out when registering. We have had some very dangerous spammers attempt to join our site recently, but they have been rejected. I also would like to ask anyone who receives any questionable personal messages to contact me. Please do not click on any link in a PM unless you know the sender and it also makes sense that they sent you a link. We have had attempts to join by those whose methods are to send PM's with links that will activate viruses on your computer. Please do not fall for this. I have also had an attempted registration this week from one who uses computer programs to hack passwords and thereby take over your account.
Please do report all questionable activity to me, as we wish to keep this site safe and free from malicious members.
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Thanks Andy for keeping an eye on these spammers, if these people just spend their time in doing something beneficial rather than annoying others, life would be much better. What is the fun in sending viruses to other people's computers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Manal
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A new spammer tactic is to register but never post. Instead, they send out PM's to other members. So, please let me know anytime you get an inappropriate PM.
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Thanks Andy....as if your plate wasnt full with us all already...that the spammers too came along....
I agree with Manals thoughts....what do they achive by doing all this? Dont they have anything better to do?
Madhavi
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They don't quit. Hilda4u tried to join again today. On an average day I am rejecting 2-3 spammers. Again, if any do slip through, please notify me immediately.
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:clap Agree
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Andy ,
you're doing a good job, you're keeping a good eye on them ... but if some one slipped , sure , i will let u know if i find any ..
Umair
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Sorry for the spam that got posted earlier today. I don't think any of the posts were up for long before I discovered and deleted them. This "member" had joined last January before I started using stricter methods to filter out spammers. I am trying to get new members to fill out bios so that they can get approved, but spammers are even using some simple bios so it makes it even more difficult to tell who is real. It is unlikely that anyone will be approved for membership without adding a real bio when they register.
Unfortunately, this does mean that occasionally a real person may be rejected. If they use a public computer, that computer's IP address may be listed as infected or a spammer and the prospective member will not be approved, unless a real bio is presented. If you know any real person who has been rejected, tell them to email me about it at andy@thalpal.com
One of the worst results of this is I spend so much time trying to determine whether or not new members are real people, that it has cut into the time I have available to the group.
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Thanks Andy for all of your efforts, :hugfriend please let us know if we can help in this.
manal
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So far this month, 185 "members" have registered. Only 23 have been approved so far. The vast bulk of new registrations are spammers. I am trying hard to keep them out. However, I am also running the risk of not approving someone because they used the same public computer that was used by someone else for purposes of spamming. If anyone is not approved and is legitimate, please email me at andy@thalpal.com
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In the first 8 days of January, there have been 146 member registrations. Only 9 were approved. The rest are bots sent around the internet with the purpose of joining and then infecting forums and/or member computers. Most of the current group originate in China or Russia. The time taken to research IP addresses is eating up my free time. I have changed the registration agreement to state that you will not be accepted as a member unless a bio is provided during registration. The notice is in a very large font, so it should not be missed by anyone. Because I have no choice but to reject anyone not leaving a bio, please do inform me if you or anyone you know has been rejected, but who are indeed real people with some interest in thalassemia.
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I am sorry to hear that Andy,wish i could help.
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In the first 8 days of January, there have been 146 member registrations. Only 9 were approved. The rest are bots sent around the internet with the purpose of joining and then infecting forums and/or member computers. Most of the current group originate in China or Russia. The time taken to research IP addresses is eating up my free time. I have changed the registration agreement to state that you will not be accepted as a member unless a bio is provided during registration. The notice is in a very large font, so it should not be missed by anyone. Because I have no choice but to reject anyone not leaving a bio, please do inform me if you or anyone you know has been rejected, but who are indeed real people with some interest in thalassemia.
Are you using a captcha on the registration page - that should usually eliminate 95% of the spammers automatically on a low commercial value site like ours. I really like the captcha being used by Wikipedia - it is such a blurry design that I think even captcha breakers would find it uneconomical. BTW, I added our forum to the Thalassemia page on Wiki.
cheers
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We use the captcha system set at its highest level. This morning we had 18 new registrations and only one was a real person. Many of the IP addresses registering for this site have over 200 entries on the Stop Forum Spam website. When I have the time, I am banning specific IP addresses and email addresses from even registering. The ban log shows repeated and ongoing attempts to register from the blocked IP's, so blocking does help some, but we are still getting at least two dozen bot registrations daily. I am hoping that as I use the new tactic of banning IP's that eventually I will see some reduction in the numbers.
What amazes me is that spammers find it worthwhile. Who replies to these things?
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I still can not understand what is the benefit these spammers are aimig for if they are no interested in the site !!!!! :dunno
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The spammer registrations are mostly not even real people. They are spambots that troll the internet, registering for every forum they can. Once they can post, that forum will be overrun with posts linking to sites selling any sort of junk. It has become epidemic the past two months. If you check the stats page, you will see that we have already had over 300 registrations in January and the month isn't even half over. Almost all of these registrations are bogus. This has broke the previous month record which was just set last month. Most of these registrations come from Russia and China and can be identified on sites that identify and record email and IP addresses of spammers. When you wonder why the net is running so slow, keep these massive spam attacks in mind. They create a lot of internet traffic and for no good. I hope it changes soon.
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The latest on this issue is that I have developed a physical injury to my elbow from the repetitive motion of copying and pasting IP addresses into the stop forum spam sites and into our ban list. Over the past 3 months this issue has developed in my elbow and I could not figure out what I was doing different at the computer that would cause it. In addition, it has grown worse to the point that it is interrupting my sleep. What has changed during this period is the sheer volume of registrations to this group. In January, we have well over 600 new registrations and over 600 of these were rejected. That's about 20 per day. In the past couple weeks I have been adding bans to IP addresses of spammers, creating even more copy and paste repetitive motion. On one hand, this has stopped many repeat offenders from registering again, as noted in the ban log, but it is also creating more of this motion that is hurting my elbow. I will be talking to my chiropractor about this tomorrow to see if he has any suggestions to combat the pain.
I don't know what to do. When a prospective member registers but does not fill out a bio as required but also does not appear on any of the spammer lists, I go even further and Google the email address and even check them on Facebook to see if they might be real people. There have been people even this past week who were approved because I took these extra steps. But each extra step is causing my elbow even more harm. I cannot make the "fill out a bio" message anymore prominent in our registration agreement than I already have. The font is huge and can't be missed but still people are not always filling out a bio. If you want to see the reg agreement, just click on registration when you are not signed in. Look at this and tell me if the statement about a bio could somehow be missed. If anyone has any idea on how to get bios 100% of the time, please let me know. I am not able to change the layout of the page so the statement does have to be located where it is, but it is very visible.
What do I do? Do I reject every member who doesn't fill out a bio? If I do that, then some people who need help will not be able to get it. I don't find this acceptable. Any ideas?
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Andy,
What can we do to help you? I hope that your elbow feels better. Why would spammers want to corrupt our site? There are some sick people out there :(
Please let us know how things work out for you with the chiropractic appointments.
Sharmin
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Andy,
I am really sorry to hear that,and i am not very good at technical stuff,but on some sites when you fill out a form,suppose on Paypal,there is s star (*) infront of the fields that are necessary,and you can't hit the registration button unless these fields are filled,can't this be done with our bio field? i don't know how is it done and even if its applicable here,but it just came to my mind.
Zaini.
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Hi Andy,
I got two advices for you.
A) You may choose to remove 'if you'd like' statement from the message that appears below. People sometime think that bio may not be necessary for registration (it creates confusion). Instead you can strongly word it as 'must provide' statement.
Biography:
Tell us a little about yourself, if you'd like.
B)
DELEGTAE
You may choose to delegate the responsibility of searching IP addresses to others who are interested. One way is to send them the IP addresses and train them how to search. This will ease your workload. You can better think what else you can delegate.
I don't know how long you can go like this. These physical injuries really hurts and may cause long term effects on your health.
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The chiropractor worked over my forearm yesterday and it's quite sore, so I'm trying to minimize my typing for a couple days. The elbow itself doesn't seem to hurt as much now, but I won't know if it's improved for a few days. I was also given some exercises to do to help counter the problem.
We use a screening system, but bots figured those out some time ago. In fact, some even leave brief bios. I think the best thing I can do now is continue to ban IP addresses. Checking the ban log tells me it is having an effect because the same IP's try to register repeatedly, but are automatically denied once on the ban list. I don't know if it's possible to rearrange the layout of the registration page. I would like a bio mandatory. I really don't know much about the technical side of the website, so I'll have to make some inquiries.
So, if you don't see much from me the next few days, be patient, as I will be back.
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Take your time Andy, :hugfriend hope you'll feel better soon.
Zaini.
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get well soon Andy!!!
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I'm typing again. Elbow still hurts but not as bad, so I'll see how I do this weekend. If I have missed something, let me know and I will get to it. Thanks for your patience.
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I think making bio field mandatory won't help much either. As when people registering will see it as a mandatory field, checks can be bypassed by filling in garbage in the box. That's what people do when they don't know what to write in a required field. But, its worth a shot. I'll be more than happy to help with the technical part, let me know if you need me :)
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Danielle is going to see if there are any changes we can make to the module to help stop spambots. A bio would at least tell me if there is some interest in thalassemia by the registrant. Meanwhile. I overdid it yesterday posting. When I was done, my arm felt like it was made out of lead, and today we have wet heavy snow yet again, which is torture to clean off my car right now. Bear with me and PLEASE be patient. Please don't tell me to get well and then ask for a quick reply to a post, especially when there is no urgency.
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Our host installed a module today that screens all registrations against the Stop Forum Spam lists. This should greatly reduce the time and effort to screen out the spammers. It can't come soon enough. My elbow is on fire today.
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Andy,
Make sure you are having the right treatment and above all the complete rest. I know how annoying and painful this could be. I really hope you can get better soon :hugfriend
manal
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Two weeks later. "385 Spammers blocked up until today." The module is doing the checking for me, so I just have to reject the spammer registrations. This has cut down the repetitive motion quite a bit. The tendinitis in my elbow is taking its time clearing up, but there is slow progress. Adding in the spammers not caught by the module but caught by checking them at other sites manually means that we have had over 400 bogus registrations in two weeks. I wonder how much internet traffic is devoted solely to spam.
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As I see it, you can do 2 things:
1. http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;type=13
Theres quite a few mods that will make it harder for spammers and bots.
2. Remove the register-page and insert 1 big fat sentence: IF YOU WISH TO REGISTER, SEND AN EMAIL TO ANDY@THALPAL.COM
I know that it will send a very large part to your email, but you could make a new shared mail-account, and by shared I mean 2 or 3 persons can have acces to it and help you filter the right ones through?
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It is nice to be able to get rid of a dozen spammer registrations with 3 clicks. If it continues to grow at this paste, I may have to investigate some of the other modules mentioned by Kocher. I am concerned that we're on track for 800 spammer registrations this month.
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Andy,
Couple of other suggestions:
1. Increase the number of questions on the registrations page - currently, it has too few - add things like location, sex, age, etc to the registration page itself - this is currently left on the profile page for each member to fill up later. The more time a spammer has to spend on the website, the less he/she/it will be inclined to do so.
2. Consider switching to a different hosting service provider, who is less tolerant of spammers - and, if not already done, make sure that the website registration is marked PRIVATE with your registrar.
3. Add a second Captcha to the site - make this a numerical one - you have to do simple math to register!
Cheers
Poirot
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The spam filter has blocked 2585 Spammers since February 12. I had to add two more while typing this. The filter is saving me a lot of work.
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Oh my God!! What a number. Good job Andy
Manal
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The spam filter stopped about 8000 spammers since February 12. Even though they were screened out as spammers, I still had to delete each registration. As the amount of spammer registrations was climbing every month, I have had our host add a new module that asks registrants to do an easy math problem. The first night in operation, not a single spammer was able to register. Normally there would be 30-40 new registrations overnight. Last night, we had one and it was a real person. Finally, we may have a solution that works, since captcha did absolutely nothing to stop the spammers. What a relief!
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Brilliant idea Andy, I am glad that you finally found a way :biggrin
Manal