Comments on: Warning: Social networks are a haven for spammers and scammers

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:17:34 +0000

Ben – I have definitely noticed a pattern of IP addresses not being sourced from Africa but still being used by African scammers. Ah, the joy of web based proxies, eh?

By: ben leefield

ben leefield — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:55:54 +0000

We have just launched a Global Address Book with People Search which enables people to be contacted by anyone without revealing their contact details (ie email) and without the person doing the contacting having to be registered. Unfortunately, as we are now growing, we seem to have come to the attention of the unpleasant folk you have referred to in this article. It probably seems naive, but we never thought that these people would message our users in a manual fashion (the only way possible) as it is such hard work for little reward. However, having had a few reports of it over the last couple of days, there are clearly some people out there with too much time on their hands, so we are now in the process of implementing preventitive programs on our messaging system.

What was particularly interesting though was that, although these naughty folk were clearly West African with the usual storylines, their IP addresses were originating out of Germany, Sweden and the UK.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:53:05 +0000

Roman – Wow, ex-girlfriends stalking you?!? I don’t blame you for leaving those social networks!

By: Roman

Roman — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:39:47 +0000

You wont believe but I erased my accounts from two the most popular russian social networks – odnoklasniki and vkontakte. The thing is that not only spammers and viruses get throught the accounts but it takes much time to be involved in network life, and for the second, many my ex-girlfriends found me and tried contact me. Horror..

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:25:42 +0000

Weight – Just use the same guidelines in the online world as you would offline, and you’ll be fine.

Ernesto – Spammers and scammers will use any opportunity they can to gain access to fresh victims. People just need to be aware of the risks and avoid revealing personal information to those they meet online.

By: Ernesto

Ernesto — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:23:05 +0000

Just when I thought spammers and scammers are encountered only on emails, it is such an unfortunate thing that they have extended their ill-doings on social networks. Good thing you provided great advises on this post on how to deal with them.

By: Weight Loss Wand

Weight Loss Wand — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:25:27 +0000

Thank you for the information about spammers and scammers. I will use the guidelines given by you while accessing any social networking site.Something should be done to stop this.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:01:32 +0000

Michael – This article was referring primarily to social networks rather than social media sites. Spam is always going to be a problem online, though. While digg should be applauded for attempting to reduce spam submissions, it’s only a matter of time before their new safeguards are beaten.

By: Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:22:16 +0000

Spammers on social media are definately a problem. But take a look at digg, I think their new voting system implemented since a week or so is actually a step forward to filtering out submissions made only for marketing purposes. Hopefully other social websites will follow.

By: Online community safety - My BBC radio interview » Online Community Building

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:13:04 +0000

[...] day after I wrote my article on the potential dangers of social networks, I was contacted by the producer of a BBC radio station – they were looking to run a feature [...]