Spam Private Messages

[momtohanna]

Not sure how to handle this, was trying to find an admin to send it to directly, but maybe you can help me.

I am receiving spam private messages from a user.

Every 5 minutes this person is sending me a message about another forum. Is there a way I can ban this user from sending me messages or get their message privileges revoked or something?

This is the person sending me the messages: http://forums.teamestrogen.com/member.php?u=9036

Thanks.

[alpinerabbit]

I've reported him via one of his posts.

[momtohanna]

ok. thanks. :)

[Biciclista]

I reported him too. What's odd is he sent me something a month ago which i ignored but then again last night.

[salsabike]

For the future, momtohanna, the way to report spam directly to the forum admin is to click the little red triangle in the bottom left.

[Biciclista]

there wasn't a place to click on a private message, i just forwarded mine to Administrator.

[Ninabike]

I got it too, but just ignored it.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Yep, I've been getting the same private messages from him as well, asking me to join his forum and 'Tweet' about it to promote it for him. Pffft.

He's just mass pm'ing us all multiple times- enough already.

[salsabike]

I actually looked at the forum. No, did not click on the link; just went there myself. Looks like a legit forum. I just don't need another one.

[SadieKate]

I suspect we're all getting them. I forwarded on to Susan and Snap to ask if they had heard of him. I haven't heard anything, but I suspect Susan is in communication with him.

I don't understand the need to use a private message about the forum. It appears to be a legit forum, but I would prefer he didn't use PM to promote it to complete strangers on another forum. It just feels sneaky.

[Triskeliongirl]

I got one too. I too wouldn't mind a single post to the general discussion, letting us know its new and there if we are interested, but I don't appreciate the PMs.

[papaver]

yep, i got one too.

[smilingcat]

Checked on his posts. So he posted five times. Also went on to his web site. It's legit.

But politetly told him not interested. Soo everyone's gotten a spam PM from him. :mad:

I guess we wont be hearing from him anytime soon. I think mine came about 3-5days ago.

[deeaimond]

yeah... i was gonna start a thread asking about that.. i got 2 or 3 messages from this guy.

well.. he must have alot of time on his hands if he's PMing everyone. maybe he needs to ride more...:D

[witeowl]

Oh, so it wasn't a special invite to a secret society. I'm all bummed now. I thought I was special. :(

Yeah, if it's a legit site, then a one-time general post would have been OK. Better yet, perhaps that person could have made some genuine contributions to this site and link to his/her forum in the signature line. Plenty of people would have clicked through.

But, now, I don't think I'll ever visit. I don't want to reward scummy, spammy behavior. Tsk tsk.

[kjb]

I've had two pms from this guy, too. The messages are very polite and all, but I agree with everyone that it's a bit weird. I'd be more likely not to go to the site because of all the messages.

[SadieKate]

Interesting.

"gavin_m has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her."

I'm assuming this is due to our admins since a few of you have said you've PM'd him back. Hopefully, this means the PMs will stop.

[administrator]

gavin_m has been banned - I was out of the office last week so I didn't see any of the reports of the poor behavior until this morning.

- Jeff

[Bike Goddess]

Thanks, Jeff. I too sent you a message regarding this person. I appreciate the fact that we have a "clean" forum here. It's one of the reasons I recommend it to other women cyclists. :D:D

[blackhillsbiker]

I got one too. I was wondering if it was just because I was new or something.

Deb

[Mr. Bloom]

Just out of curiousity, is he banned because he's promoting another forum (which many others have done in threads) or because he is sending Spam PM's to do it (and in many cases, multiple ones...)

I too received one and disregarded, but the PM wasn't offensive (although I'll admit being upset if I was getting them regularly like some are).

To clarify, I don't oppose the conclusion...just curious as to the basis.

This guy went to a lot of trouble to send all these PMs. I think this underscores the potential commercial value of an active forum and the indirect contribution that TE makes to support this one and not commercialize it like others out there.:)

[jobob]

He was clearly misusing the forum to promote his own commercial interests, which, in case you hadn't noticed it Mr. S, is not permitted per forum rules.

[Trek420]

I didn't get one. I feel left out ;) :rolleyes:

[lph]

He was clearly misusing the forum to promote his own commercial interests, which, in case you hadn't noticed it Mr. S, is not permitted per forum rules.

But wasn't it a free site?

I'm not too happy either about receiving "private" messages that obviously aren't, but it was politely worded and only one, so I just deleted and forgot about it.

[OakLeaf]

I'm okay with him being banned, but I don't understand why abbey.barclay hasn't been banned. I find her spam much more annoying (even if it's just an ignored blank, I can see the messages are there, which isn't really different from not ignoring them since they have no real content).

But yeah, as far as that PM, I just deleted and ignored it.

[bmccasland]

I've been away from my computer for several days, but got one too - was a bit confused why i was invited to another forum in the first place, from someone I don't know. I like this one. I just hit the "delete" button.

[witeowl]

But wasn't it a free site?

Maybe so, but I'm sure that there would ultimately be advertising at that free forum.

[jobob]

I wasn't going to follow a link that someone out of the blue pm'd to me.

It could have been free, but from my perspective that doesn't matter one bit. It was an unsolicited advertisement.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I wasn't going to follow a link that someone out of the blue pm'd to me.
It could have been free, but from my perspective that doesn't matter one bit. It was an unsolicited advertisement.

Exactly. No one should be using the TE member private messaging system to promote anything. It's an abuse of the forum, and it's SPAM- doesn't matter whether it's to make money or not.

[SadieKate]

I'm okay with him being banned, but I don't understand why abbey.barclay hasn't been banned. I find her spam much more annoying (even if it's just an ignored blank, I can see the messages are there, which isn't really different from not ignoring them since they have no real content).Have you reported her since you feel this way? I've seen one message that was just plain weird, off topic and sort of an advertisement (salsa's tandem thread) but no links so I just ignored it.

[OakLeaf]

Yep, more than once.

She usually sends out a barrage of messages once a week or so, with enough content that you can tell it's either a live person or a very sophisticated bot, but barely on topic and often reviving old threads. It's really annoying when I click on "New Posts" and there are a dozen threads with replies by abbey.barclay - if one of the threads is one that I'm interested in, there's no way to know whether there have been real replies posted without clicking on the thread.


Edit: apparently she's been banned, now. Thanks, mods. ;)

[BikingNurse]

I don't understand the need to use a private message about the forum. It appears to be a legit forum, but I would prefer he didn't use PM to promote it to complete strangers on another forum. It just feels sneaky.[/QUOTE]

Sneaky, thats what I was thinking. I didn't think much about the first PM but the second I was like .... "Dude, you already sent me this. People won't want to even bother if youre gonna harrass us"

[Zen]

I didn't get one. I feel left out ;) :rolleyes:

I'll send you mine.

[KSH]

I got a PM from him too about the same thing.

[lph]

I wasn't going to follow a link that someone out of the blue pm'd to me.

It could have been free, but from my perspective that doesn't matter one bit. It was an unsolicited advertisement.

No, I agree that it was mis-use, or at least, undesirable use, of the pm system, I was just questioning the bit about "misusing the forum for commercial interests". I felt the content was fine, the placing and the multiple messages was not.

But I'm fine with people posting general invites to other forums, I don't find that inappropriate.

[withm]

Yep, more than once.

She usually sends out a barrage of messages once a week or so, with enough content that you can tell it's either a live person or a very sophisticated bot, but barely on topic and often reviving old threads. It's really annoying when I click on "New Posts" and there are a dozen threads with replies by abbey.barclay - if one of the threads is one that I'm interested in, there's no way to know whether there have been real replies posted without clicking on the thread.


Edit: apparently she's been banned, now. Thanks, mods. ;)

One of the best features here at TE is the ability to put whole threads, or individuals on "IGNORE." That way if someone who posts stuff you don't like those posts won't show up when you click on "New Posts.> It's my favorite tool... whole threads about tv shows? gone! I love it.

[Miranda]

Yea... the thing I thought was weird about it was the activity on the other forum. I didn't click the link in my PM. I found the forum via google in a seperate window. Here on TE, you need to be registered to do a "search". There you do not. When I "searched" the user name... no posts... other than mention of it in a forum member that had joined by invite etc. Sometimes the peeps on those forums to receive their ad-min / marketing pay is to have "X" # profile of users / volume... to lure advertisers to pay etc. Based upon the potential clientele they will expose. A bit explotive.

[snapdragen]

Wait....admins get paid? :eek: Hey Jeff? Susan? Adventure Girl and I have a question..... :D:D:D

[wannaduacentury]

Not sure how to handle this, was trying to find an admin to send it to directly, but maybe you can help me.

I am receiving spam private messages from a user.

Every 5 minutes this person is sending me a message about another forum. Is there a way I can ban this user from sending me messages or get their message privileges revoked or something?

This is the person sending me the messages: http://forums.teamestrogen.com/member.php?u=9036

Thanks.

I received one as well last week, but only one. Not sure about it. Jenn

[Trek420]

I'll send you mine.

Thanks, but no thanks :rolleyes:

[rachgreen]

dont worry-- theyre good at catching them if this is happening to any of you out there. just post something about it and theyll see it.

[jobob]

Who do you mean by "they" ? :confused:

[ASammy1]

I've received more than one from that guy, but just deleted him. It's annoying, but he was polite. Thanks for banning him, admins!

[Geonz]

Me too... yea, the content was "fine" -- but then, *why* the PM route? Why spam? Something didn't smell right about it. Maybe it was a hacker experimenting with a mass PM program and planning nefarious things later...

[DarcyInOregon]

Hmmm, guess I was the only one who went over to the other site. I like it because it has a diversity of people, the ability to have more photos, one can blog, and the site is well monitored by the administrators. I don't have much time to spend in these type of discussion forums because my days are pretty busy. After enough years the content becomes repetitive on all of the cycling forums, blah blah blah saddles ... butt pain ... bonking ... what to eat ... crashed ... clipless pedals ... blah blah blah, however I do think the other site is just as nice as Team Estrogen.

[teigyr]

It's not like I spend far too much time on the computer or anything nor am I perpetually distrustful but I always figure there's a reason why people do what they do. That one was kind of simple for short-range goals and my guess is somewhere along the way step 3 will be profit. They wanted traffic to come to their site and are very concerned about where they appear on a google search. Page 1? Page 2? They wanted page 1 and had some ideas about how to accomplish that. As far as what happens later on after it happens (maybe they're looking for advertisers?), who knows.

I did find the whole twitter request strange. Yeah he was polite but why would a stranger want everyone's twits? Er, I mean tweets.

Am pretty sure I know who the mysterious Gavin_M is on the other site and once you do that and then go back to previous posts here (info gathering) and then there, you can see what led up to it. Again, not saying it's bad. Just is.