Spambot PM's....BEWARE!!! Please report them here.....

[DRAGON]

It has come to my attention that we've seen more and more spambot activity through Private Messages sent to members here at SOC. The bots register and rather than take the chance of getting banned because of posting out in the open, they suck you in by PM'ing you to get you to click on links they supply in the PM -

What's worse is they sign the PM as being a staff member or administrator to convince you it's an official notice. They'll tell you about anything under the sun to get you to click links or sell you things that you don't want or really need. Here's an example of their deceptive PM's sent by a spambot with the SOC nickname of Lady_Admin:

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Dear, SOC member!

A virus alert was noticed on your computer.
We highly recommend you to check your computer and perform online virus check at our site immediately: http://anti*ir*s.ef*ectm*ds.com

Sincerely, Forum Administration www.spyder.tv.

----------------------------------------------------

This is total BS!!! DO NOT CLICK ANY SUCH PROVIDED LINKS!!! There's more a chance of getting a virus than getting rid of one that you don't have in the first place by clicking the link. I threw some asterisks ** in the URL to disable it -

If you receive anything that looks like this, please post the name of the bot/member and your experience in this thread. As an additional precaution, please forward the PM to an active mod or administrator so we can permanently ban these scumbags from our forums -

Your cooperation and assistance is greatly appreciated. Help keep your SOC boards free of those that would take you for a ride or harm your computer as well as preventing them from doing harm to other members of our beloved boards. Thanks -

[marvin-martian]

In the past few months I've gotten more spam PMs than legit ones (never had too many legit ones in the first place). It has gotten to the point where if I see a new PM, I roll my eyes and look for a mod online who can ban them. =/

[bamf-hacker]

Marv let us know so we can get rid of them. SOC is not the only site getting hammered by them, IO and LO are being hit hard too.

[marvin-martian]

haha I have been. First mod I see on AIM gets informed.

[bigred76]

http://spyder.tv/forums/member.php?u=24640

She started another user name.

[shunut]

She is banned. She keeps PMing me.

[marvin-martian]

oh thats smart, have it programmed to PM mods

[DFSniper]

yeah. and this last time "she" PM'd 'sac, lol!

[DRAGON]

Apparently this needs a more in depth search to see if it's an existing member playing games which could be lethal -

THX for the heads up red -

[DFSniper]

why do they add ICQ accts too?