Private Messages Spam?

adam_n_eve · #1 31st Jan 10, 09:36 PM

today i have received 2 private messages from a member called "aaa3705" who it appeared only joined today.

here is the message:

hi dear:

i am a postgraduate from Birmingham City University. recently, i am doing some research about running shoes.

so i need a interview for my primary research.

i think you are very suitable for my project.

so if you are not very busy. could you please receive my interview? i really need this interview. please don't refuse my very soon.

this is my email xuwei3705@msn.com

best wishes

ronniew

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

now i do have a feeling that this may be sent as a phishing email. i'm sure someone who is a post-grad student could speak better english than that

so just to warn people not to reply to these emails as they could probably be used as phishing

bats · #2 31st Jan 10, 09:37 PM

got the same one yesterday and reported it as spam.

beasty1711 · #3 31st Jan 10, 09:52 PM

The offending user has been banned.

With things like this, you can use to report option to notify us.

*Hrun* · #4 31st Jan 10, 09:53 PM

I will flag this up to bairy, I know he did take action on your report bats although it does not seem to have had the desired effect

*Hrun* · #5 31st Jan 10, 09:54 PM

There you go, beasty beat me to it. Not always so quick to navigate the site on the iPhone.

bats · #6 31st Jan 10, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hrun

I will flag this up to bairy, I know he did take action on your report bats although it does not seem to have had the desired effect

could adam & eves pms still of been lurking around from yesterday?

i moderate on a vulletin forum and i know some of the ones we've banned/removed can still have their posts in the system, they just have a 'banned' under their username.

too answer myself, Yes. just checked my pm's and its still in there, or was needed a manual delete.

**bairy** · #7 31st Jan 10, 10:11 PM

Okay what happened is that aaa3705 signed up, PMd about 15 people with roughly the same message and went away.

bats reported it. I PMd Mr aaa and told him that mass PMing is rude and likely ineffective, and to make a post if he has a geniune need. He said sorry.

No new PMs have been sent since the original batch - though I realise some will only see them today - so I've unbanned him for now because his ip checks out to being in north birmingham and though I admit he does have appaling grammer, that alone isn't enough for me to conclude he is a scammer of some sort.

I'll keep a watch out, but until he does something actually wrong I'm not happy to put a ban on.

PS I don't delete PM messages even by banned or deleted users atm because most get notified there is a PM by email, and I don't want to cause confusion by fiddling with private messages.

bats · #8 31st Jan 10, 10:17 PM

cheers for the expliantion Bairy.

roadrunnerrob · #9 31st Jan 10, 10:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adam_n_eve

i'm sure someone who is a post-grad student could speak better english than that

You'd be surprised...

Pindar · #10 1st Feb 10, 11:27 PM

I emailed him and he is Chinese I think. That may go some way to explaining the poor English. He hasn't actually emailed back yet with the interview. In my experience post graduate students tend to be a lot more efficient if you agree to help them, it's something I done a few times when I was at St Andrews.