Maggie 65 Report post Posted February 14, 2012 what is the story behind the weird member names that pop up, (?overnight), then disappear again? Who are they and where do they come from. I'm intrigued. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Community Online 65 Report post Posted February 14, 2012 They are "spammers" trying to get an account. What you see is the account in the validation process and 95% of them don't make it through, the few that get through the validation process are captured by the forum software and immediately go into a Banned group. Rather than leave them in the banner list, they are being deleted almost immediately by Community Online. Sometimes these come through in the middle of the night, so are not deleted straight away. When you signed up to an account you went through a validation process, this it to try and prevent these spambots. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Maggie 65 Report post Posted February 14, 2012 So what are these spammers trying to do? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Community Online 65 Report post Posted February 14, 2012 They will normally just post links to sites, with the dual goals of increasing search visibility in highly competitive areas such as weight loss, pharmaceuticals, gambling, real estate or loans, and generating more traffic for these commercial websites. Some of these links contain code to track the spambot's identity if a sale goes through, when the spammer behind the spambot works on commission. Links are not necessarily posted, they can be in the account profile or sit in the user's signature. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
