Hello Freecycle Members,
This may be a bit long winded, so please bear with me as this is very important.
There are many forms of Spam in the Internet world but we would like to warn you about two types that are commonly circulated amongst Freecycle groups.
SPAM SENT WITHOUT THE MEMBERS KNOWLEDGE
This is the Spam that we receive most frequently. This is where a members email has been hijacked due to a virus, trojan, malware, or adware that is on their computer. It happens because the member has either gone on a site that infected their computer or they clicked a link that was sent to them via an email. Usually the Spam email is sent without the members knowledge. Because of this, we send the member a notice letting them know that there is an issue and how to correct it.
The Spam email looks something like this:
it feels like im disappointing my family everyone was worried about me without this my life would be miserable.
(Link removed by Moderators) this made me feel whole no pressure just check it out You will thank me!
When we are sent a Spam email, we are able to see all of the email addresses that it is sent to as well. We have noticed that these Spam emails are also sent to some of our members, some to a Craigslist post, and some to other Freecycle owners or groups. This is why we do NOT allow links to be submitted within our posts!
It has been my experience that Spam emails of this nature are sent to the contacts in your address book because you have some form of adware or malware on your computer, or it has been hijacked. I know a great program that is very easy to use. I use Malwarebytes to scan my computer daily and it safely removes viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, dialers, spyware, and malware from your computer. Best of all, its free and works with any anti-virus program. You cannot beat double protection. Make sure to always update it before you scan your computer, as there are always new threats.
We take Spam very seriously, hence, we send out one warning as it is a one strike and you're out policy. If we receive SPAM from you again, your email address will be banned from the group. If you are aware of the Spam emails being sent from your email, you may want to remove the Tacoma Area Freecycle owners email address from your address book for the time being so the emails do not continue to be sent to the group.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
AUTO-BOT OR EMAIL HARVESTERS
We also wanted to alert you to a spammer that has circulating through some Freecycle groups in the past. Although we have not received any of these types of reports from members recently, it is still important to make our members aware of these types of emails so that your computer is not compromised. These auto-bot accounts are email harvesters, which means they collect emails from members that have posted recently or replied to their post (usually an Ipod, Wii or Laptop).
We are told that when you respond to their 'Offer' post, they respond back saying that someone was going to pick the item up but never got back to them and asks if you still want it. After you confirm that you would still like the item, they reply with Spam that reads something like this...
Hey,
I'm really, really sorry... the other person replied, turns out her first email went to the junk box and I didn't see it. I feel like such an idiot....
You know, I actually wasn't gonna mention this, but 3 weeks ago I got a check in the mail for $1800 from the government. ETC... (we hid the rest of the email including the link)
As always, we do not suggest clicking on a link of an unknown website in an email from an unknown person. We do suggest that you forward the email to us (see instructions below) then click on SPAM to make sure you never receive their email again. Members are under no obligation to respond to any emails from members inquiring about an item. A 'Taken' or 'Received' post lets the members know that the transaction has been completed.
For the past two years, we have taken preventative measures to insure the safety of our members by requesting that each new member fill out a questionnaire before they can join our group. This keeps the auto-bots out and allows us to see that a real person is behind the membership that is pending. We have also been diligently going through each membership within our group to see if there are any visible spam warning signs (ie joining out of state groups, etc.).
If you have had these types of spam sent to you, please forward the entire email (including headers & footers) to the owner's email address so we can track down the spammer and ban them. You can easily do this by going into the email, scroll down to locate a link called 'Full Headers'. From there, you can copy/paste it directly on the email that you send. It will help us locate where the email address came from and most likely has their IP address on it, which will also help.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to ask. We are always happy to help!
Thanks for being such a great group!
Your Friendly Tacoma Area Freecycle Moderators
Questions? Comments? TacomaAreaFreecycle-owner@yahoogroups.com
QUICK GUIDE TO CORRECT SUBJECT LINE FORMAT:
(Use ONLY one of these four keywords)
OFFER: couch - (Your Home Location)
TAKEN: couch - (Your Home Location)
WANTED: garden hose - (Your Home Location)
RECEIVED: garden hose - (Your Home Location)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Compose messages easily with Internet Explorer and *Firefox* Freecycle Plugins from http://wiki.memberplugin.org. Click to install it today!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Please join our new forum, the Tacoma Area Freecycle Café. It is a place where you can share links, services, resources, community agencies, volunteer opportunities, trade, or barter.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TacomaAreaFreecycle_Cafe
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
(c) 2010 The Freecycle Network http://www.Freecycle.org). All rights reserved.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS? Email: TacomaAreaFreecycle-owner@yahoogroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment