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In dealing with our continuous onslaught of scammers hitting the forums.

I would like to suggest moving those sub-forums behind 'The Wall' (so to speak) much like our beloved Off Topic Forums.

Since these are intended for members of the forum anyways. It would at least be an attempt in diminishing the Scammer traffic... If they cannot see them as a visitor, or by doing a simple Googly search. They may be less inclined to sign up and give it a whirl.

C.
 

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starbike, vulcan, yamaha-forum, yamahaforum, HD Street, Blue Oval Fanatics, GT350
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I understand your thought, but the scammers are joining the forum then sending PM and running the scam. So your idea would block a non member from seeing classified but doesn't litterly every forum similar to ours have a classified? The scammers will join just to look and see if they can catch someone off guard and scam them. To me, a certain number of posts before the classified can be seen might be the best tool or limiting PMs to staff only from new members until a certain number of posts. Question is, why can't a simple code be written and implemented on our forums.
 

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I agree with Les. Putting the Classifieds behind the wall won't do much to curtail scammer behavior. Their M.O. is to join to get access and then run their scams.

But I don't agree with making them inaccessible to view. Sometimes a new member will join because they want to legitimately buy or sell something. Hopefully, they stay and become an active member.

We used to have some pretty good Classifieds rules before the XenForo change. Members had to have at least 25 posts and be a member for 30 days prior to being allowed to post in the Classifieds. This weeded out the hit-and-run people, but also meant that we had to be alert for post whores. It wasn't a huge deal and actually made members feel better about who they were dealing with in the Classifieds knowing that they were active members. We would love to see this policy return.

Now, as far as the current crop of scammers goes, this policy in and of itself won't do anything to stop them. They take advantage of Want-to-Buy postings by sending the member a Private Conversation. This is where we need controls. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Members that haven't posted a Welcome message (or any other message for that matter) should not be allowed to access the Private Conversation feature. This will do wonders for getting rid of scammers. It forces them to become active on the site.

Combining these two items into a policy would put pretty good controls around the Classifieds. We should be doing everything we can to protect the membership from known dangers. They should know we're on their side and doing what we can to protect them.
 

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AVS Forum
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We get a lot of members that join because of what they found in the classifieds. If there was no classifieds section visible to logged out readers, the assumption would be that we don't have one and traffic would decline.
 

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Well then maybe (re)institute the previous forum requirement of a member having to have 15 posts prior to being able send a pm to anyone (except staff).

It wouldn't eliminate the posting abilities of those scammers (Hey, I've got what you're looking for--email me at etc.) but it would be a start.

We had another one of those today. Posted a "welcome" (sort of) and immediately posted in the for sale forum. Forum sw picked up on his IP this time and we spam cleaned him right quick.
 

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+1 on the minimum post count.
Also +1 on not desiring a shielded For Sale area.

As a car forum, we get some new members looking for cars/parts who go on to become members.
We do encourage members to report any odd behaviours.

It is impossible to eliminate, but current set up does little to deter if they pass joining criteria.
Blocking ip addresses is a no, no for us as the UK have a shared ip system, especially for mobile users.

Though, some of the 'culprits' help us along with username choice.
'viagrasupplies' lasts the blink of an eye.
 
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GTR
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the scamming is organised and on an industrial scale. rule changes will simple make them adapt and if anything make them harder to detect.

It's requires a technology solution which works across the entire network and that , hopefully, it's a priority right now.

The irony is we are trying to attract "non-forum" people and then exposing them to scams which they may be more naive to. It's upsetting TBH.
 

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Well worth visiting 'who is online' and seeing who is looking at member profiles, that is a newb and has not posted. It makes them worth 'following'.
They could be checking out what to put in their own profile, but more often that is not the case.

Impossible to have a 100% secure site and remain useable by all members on all platforms.
 
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I'm just a lowly SuperMod, so I can't speak to the AdminCP, but the option to ban as spam is no longer available after a length of time. I don't know what the time frame is for that and I don't know why the option should go away. At that point, the only option is to administer a regular ban. 🔨
 

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I'm just a lowly SuperMod, so I can't speak to the AdminCP, but the option to ban as spam is no longer available after a length of time. I don't know what the time frame is for that and I don't know why the option should go away. At that point, the only option is to administer a regular ban. 🔨
As someone who once Spam banned a member with some incredible content by accident, i can appreciate it going away lol
 

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@Yorik Spam ban is only good for 2 weeks after date of registration. In all honesty though, all that ability means is all threads/posts by that spammer are binned (totally unrecoverable) and the IP is supposedly wiped (not to sure about that though).

I agree that spam ban should be permanently available as we've come across "sleeper cells" 😉 that have been dormant by sometimes up to 6 months before something "activates" them. By then, s/b is too late and ban must suffice.

Ban is just as effective though, just need to review the few, if any posts made by them.
 

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The spam tool only soft deletes posts. They can be undeleted.
 

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Really? Where do they go? Once I s/b, that post/thread is gone. Not in recycle so where?

If I look at profile and their activity, it shows a post made but if I click on it, it's not "viewable".
 

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They don’t go anywhere. They stay where they were and are simply soft deleted.

For example, you can go to a newly spam banned user and see their soft deleted posts under their latest activity.
 

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Not on my forum. As I said, I see they made 1 or 2 posts in activity but if I click--nada.

I'll try to remember to review the next one though and verify. Can't offhand remember recent ones though.

Maybe I'll ask @jbanks15 to review the banned list for spammers with one post (we usually catch them b4 they post though) and check to see if those can be seen.
 

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They may only be visible to admins but the content is still recoverable.
 

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An example of a spam cleaned account...

5862
 

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OK. But IIRC, if you click on the "1" (Discussions Created), it won't pull up that post.
 
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