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PM Spam


  • proweb01
    Participant

    @proweb01

    6 years, 9 months ago

    Hello all,

    Sorry if this has been answered before. I promise I tried to search the forums first. I saw similar situations, but not exact.

    Twice now, I’ve had a user register on the site, verify their email and even upload a profile image… Then they are somehow able to send one of those hokey Nigerian Prince messages to every member of my online community of thousands of members. The entire thing seems more of a manual process for the spammer than an automatic one, but I guess I don’t know. For me, this is humiliating.

    1) How is this spammer doing this?
    2) How can I stop it from happening?

    Any help is appreciated. Thanks!!

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • Venutius
    Moderator

    @venutius

    6 years, 9 months ago

    A potential fix for this is here: https://github.com/r-a-y/bp-pms-for-friends

    It means normal users can only PM people they have friended first, so stops mass PMs


    D L
    Participant

    @damon18

    6 years, 2 months ago

    I just started using Buddypress on a site and the Buddypress members all got a PM from a new user HARIATTA11 that registered this morning.

    What I don’t understand is how the new member, a subscriber with no group memberships (both buddypress groups are private) was able to PM everyone? Where did they see the members list to know all the usernames?


    Prashant Singh
    Participant

    @prashantvatsh

    6 years, 2 months ago

    I guess on the members directory only he can see all the user name. It must be your_site_url/members page.

    Thanks


    D L
    Participant

    @damon18

    6 years, 2 months ago

    @prashantvatsh Thanks, I didn’t realize that every user could see the /members page and then if they click to a members profile they see the public and private messaging buttons too.

    It seems that every new registration on the site automatically becomes a Buddypress member. So then they can see the membership list and message any other user without being a member of any group.

    This isn’t good, easy for manual spammers to register and send PM spam to members.


    D L
    Participant

    @damon18

    6 years, 2 months ago

    I just tried disabling BuddyPress PM’s but any member can still send public messages to any other member which still results in an email notification sent out, so a spammer could still use that.


    proweb01
    Participant

    @proweb01

    6 years, 2 months ago

    I installed this plugin and all PM spam stopped ever since. It requires a person to be your friend before they can PM you. https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-private-message-for-friends-only/


    D L
    Participant

    @damon18

    6 years, 2 months ago

    I like the idea of friends-only PM’s but that plugin hasn’t been updated and carries the warning.

    This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

    It looks like r-a-y is still active here though, so maybe it’s ok with the latest WP and BP?


    proweb01
    Participant

    @proweb01

    6 years, 2 months ago

    I am on the latest release of both WP and BP and can confirm that it works. I can’t speak to your specific compatibility, but it works on mine.


    D L
    Participant

    @damon18

    6 years, 2 months ago

    Thanks @proweb01 I’ll give it a try.


    clayj
    Participant

    @clayj

    5 years, 5 months ago

    I’ve been having the same PM spam issue. I’m considering the Friends-Only plugin, but wondering if it’s still working for you guys? You don’t have spammers sending tons of friend requests to everyone?


    proweb01
    Participant

    @proweb01

    5 years, 5 months ago

    It still works on mine. We do get spammers occasionally that send mass friend requests then spam, but I can usually block their user before too much damage is done. It’s the best thing to a solution that I could find.


    clayj
    Participant

    @clayj

    5 years, 5 months ago

    OK, thanks very much for the input.


    Blog Ma Khuyen Mai Coupon Code Voucher
    Participant

    @makhuyenmai

    5 years, 5 months ago

    Thanks for the infomation 🙂

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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