Spammers don’t generally tend to hide themselves very well – if your mailbox isn’t heaving with viagra and rolex spam, then your forums are probably stuffed to bursting point with imitation Gucci bags and MMORPG gold farmers.
They do come up with clever little scams every now and again, though. Check out this guy:
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While the above isn’t particularly fantastic, he’s certainly up to some sneaky spamming elsewhere. A well known videogame website allows users to write reviews about the games they’ve played on a specific section of the main portal. Instead of forum spamming or sending junk by direct messaging, he’s using the reviews to promote downloads and moneymaking affiliate schemes instead:
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That’s a pretty smart way to try and evade the moderators – it’s certainly a lot less obvious than six thousand “buy these handbags” messages splattered across a forum…
Christopher Boyd