That’s an interesting idea. What about using the Akismet anti-spam service to check the content of the message?
I’ve also had bots send spam messages via private messaging, and it’s a pain once it gets started.
I thought Askimet was just for comments – can you also configure it for private messages? I do have it set up and running right now, along with Wordfence, a reCaptcha V2 on registration form (and for bbPress), and a BuddyPress Private Message Rate Limiter.
Right now I’m using these plugins:
– Askimet
– Wordfence
– Advanced noCaptcha & invisible Captcha (On registration form)
– Anti-Spam by CleanTalk
– BuddyPress Private Message Rate Limiter
It helps, but apparently not enough – just had a user sign up last night, receive a spam message, and request to have their account deleted this morning. It’s obviously frustrating, so if Askimet could be doing something extra that I just haven’t configured it for, that would be great…
But I’m not sure how it could even successfully flag the messages based on content? Some are very bland “Hi Dear, I like you profile and would love to talk, please contact me privately via e-mail at xxxxxxxx ” Which don’t seem that different from legitimate messages, except that they’re being sent out en masse from users with profiles that say they’re in US, but with IP’s in Africa, etc.
Does anyone know if these same bots would also send out mass friend requests? I remember seeing a mention of restricting private messaging to friends, which might be my next step… But I don’t want to implement an additional hurdle for users if the bots would also just abuse that. 🙁
Sorry for the long post, but thanks for any help!
Hello, I use the plugin bp-messaging-control plugin so that no more than 20 messages can be sent per day which can help. You can configure it so that no more than x messages can be sent per day.
