Scammers

[dutchzcarguy]

Ps... my secret number is NOT 22 😉  it's much much bigger... 😁

[SteveJ]

6 hours ago, Mike said:

Hey guys,

Yeah thanks for your patience as I weed through the posts.  These kinds of posts typically come in waves.  We'll see a bunch of them and then they will taper off again.  I'm not too worried about it because our post-process system is great.  The best way you can help is to continue reporting the posts.  I will then look at the member account, flag them as a spammer, and they won't be able to log in again.  Best thing is I can restrict based on IP address.  Most of the latest ones have been coming from India, so it's been great to collect the address pool and I can restrict the entire network segment.  There's no real way to prevent this kind of thing, sadly.  Recaptcha is a great idea, but it doesn't work anymore.  The bots have all worked around the recaptcha security and it's worthless these days.  The first post idea is a good idea but it requires that we screen all posts from new members.  Since I'm not on every day this can ruin the new user experience.  Our software also has methods to detect potential scammers by filtering emails and IP addresses through a known list of spammers, but again these guys just go out and get new IP's.  From what I've found, it's better just to let them post so we can create a database of network segments, and then just shut them off in their tracks.  I can do this at both the root level and in our software.  😉

Mike

Just let us know if there is anything else we can do to help, @Mike. We're all a part of this community.

[Captain Obvious]

4 hours ago, dutchzcarguy said:

when your number is 3491 make a number in front and or after it say: 22349122

That's amazing! I got the same combination on my luggage!

[SteveJ]

7 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

That's amazing! I got the same combination on my luggage!

 

[Yarb]

For Once tonight it’s fantastic just to see your fellow friends once again on this forum. I always check to see who’s on line at the time. 
yarb

[SteveJ]

And another spammer just joined. 

https://www.classiczcars.com/profile/39043-ruhi-kapoor/

[Pilgrim]

On 3/27/2022 at 3:39 AM, dutchzcarguy said:

80 Plus? I counted over 350! then i stopped but there were more..

 

AS a EX.. securitysystem -guy... i always said and still say: NEVER ever put all your secret numbers in a computer!!!  It's asking for trouble !!  A piece of paper what you hide on a secret spot is much safer because no scammer can read that on a computer!  You can think it's save on a computer... IT's NOT !!   ANYthing on a computer is in there with zero's and ones! and everything is .. in the end... readable, how good your safety is does not matter, if i can read the harddisk i can access ALL your Data..

SO..  

1 NO secrets on a computer, its not safe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 a piece of paper, and when your number is 3491 make a number in front and or after it say: 22349122  You only know that the 22 is fake!  Make it a habbit!!  Put 2 letters or diggits in front and rear.. think of your own number you want to use... then.. even is someone finds your piece of paper can't work with it!

Good luck !  🙂 

Except that when you're away from home, etc. that piece of paper isn't with you, not if it has 200+ passwords like mine does.  And paper can be lost, which then means you're screwed unless you have a scanned copy of your PW document, which you probably won't make every time you add a PW to the list.  I'm happy with a password-protected cloud-based PW program.

I do heartily endorse having a consistent pattern of PW construction that uses some known basic alpha characters (possibly based on the website or software's  name) plus numerical characters in some combination of prefix and suffix, and a special character.

Most sites require at least eight characters, both alpha and numerical, including at least one capitalized alpha character, plus a special character.  That means it's not too hard to establish a PW convention which makes it easier for you to be consistent in the scheme you use, but vary the characters in each PW.

[Jeff G 78]

I have a PW list on my phone, but everything is in shorthand.  I have various combinations of PW's for different sites depending on the type of site and requirements.  My list tells me enough to know it, but not enough for anybody else to figure it out.

As for the scammers, I've seen some good automated safeguards on other forums.  Some force the first post to be in the introduction forum and then also block posts in certain sub-forums until a specified timeframe and/or post count is reached.  For example, classifieds cannot be posted or replied to for 30 days after the intro post.  @mike is there any way to automatically block a second post until the member receives a certain number of likes on the intro post?  We as members could take the pressure off of you if this is possible.  There are enough old timers that could weed out the real members from the bots.  We could "like" the real posts.  Once they reach five likes, they are approved to post again.  It should take less than 30 minutes to reach five likes and it would be spelled out upon joining.  The new members could also not give likes until they are approved to keep the bots from liking their own posts from different accounts.  This would put the burden on us to police the scammers and bots.  Another idea would be to give contributing members the authority to hide posts.  There are enough paying members to keep the bot posts off the board.  You could then delete and ban when you have time.

[dutchzcarguy]

16 hours ago, Pilgrim said:

Except that when you're away from home

I'm not much away from home i guess.. and when i am i take those codes i need with me on that specific trip... don't need 200 of them!  I also have a system in website passwords that i'm not gonna tell here haha..

3 hours ago, Jeff G 78 said:

My list tells me enough to know it, but not enough for anybody else to figure it out.

Exactly! 😉 

[bpilati]

On 3/26/2022 at 11:33 AM, S30Driver said:

@bpilati might weigh in ...

Yo, what up?

[S30Driver]

I don't know how active you are Brian as a amin here, maybe you could discuss  a future spam strategy with Mike to minimize the havoc it caused on the site recently.

just a thought..

Edited April 1, 2022 by S30Driver
addition

[emccallum]

stillwellbrenden775 and tonyd4 are most likely scammers. Just joined and responded to my parts wanted ad with the typical contact my friend he has what you need.