I have a new dating site CRAWLING WITH SCAMMERS. HELP!!

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 31 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

I am the owner of a new dating site. I never realized the enormous amount of scammers out there until I started this site. I have spent countless hours deleting scammers and checking IP addresses. Most of them are from some "africa network". What should I do? I have alot of good normal people on my site and I don't want to lose them. I feel like a victim because I've spent so much money getting this started and now these ignorant scammers are sending messages to my members and clicking on my ads. I'm actually paying for these losers! Can someone help? If you are looking for scammers, I can guarantee some by the end of the day...unfortunately. I don't want to mention my site in this posting because I don't want to get a rep for having these losers on my site, although I am sure that this is common on all free dating sites. If anyone can help or has any advice, let me know. Thanks in advance.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:20 pm

Hello and welcome,
we have a member Began Steele with that same problem, maybe he is willing to share info?
I wouldn't mind hanging around on your site and point out some scammers, I also have some 10.000.000 confirmed bad IP#'s to make that easier, but better talk to Began first.

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1269

I can help point out love scammers on your site too if you still need help after talking to Began. Let me know if I can help. Smile

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 31 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

Thanks for the offer, but uhhh..whats all that crazy stuff under your reply? lol After I talk to a few others, I may take you up on that. I need all the help I can get!

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1269

Quote:

x3

x15

x4

x3

x2

|?| x2
GUY MAKE I TELL U UR F*CK UOP TOOMUCH SOMETHING WEY U GO DEY TELL OTHER PEOPLE NA IEM U DEY TELL UR BROTHER BECOS I DEY FIN MY BELLE OK IF U TALK SAY TO FIN BELLE NO GOOD U NO GO GET AM FOR THIS WORLD WEY U DEY
NO REPLY THIS MAIL BUT NA JUST TO TELL U SAY UR F*CK UP TOOMUCH
IF U NO BUY THE IDEA WHY NOT DELETE AM ABI U WAN TELL ME SAY U SABI WRITE AND COURSE PEOPLE
IF U WRITE ME AGAIN I GO SEND VIRUS TO UR BOX

Penguins. Lovely. -Edward Cullen

All that stuff? It's my signature. This handy thread can tell you what the little icons mean. The first quote is from one of my lads and the second one is from Eclipse, one of my favorite books. Very Happy

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=118861

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 31 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

Thanks for explaining. I thought for a second that you just had some anger issuses. Very Happy

PM Me if you think you can help. I can give you the url.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:47 pm

Kudos to you for caring enough to want to keep your site clear!

And it was really smart of you to come here for information and assistance.

(If you want to PM me the name of your site, I am still looking for a place to register as my own self, not connected with baiting.) Embarassed

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 31 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

I checked out the thread about the icons. You guys are awesome! I'm glad that there are people out there that are doing just as much to stop these people as these people are doing to scam. I guess for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? Keep it up guys. Smile

Not quite a Newb Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 78

Welcome Datinguy and thanks for the kind words, sending you a PM

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:51 am

Special_K wrote:

:All that stuff? It's my signature. This handy thread can tell you what the little icons mean. http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=118861

I was wondering what all those were for. Cool

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 1:19 pm

Many of the Nigerian scammers steal their pictures from www.focushawaii.com if you have a look at the photos you will notice similiar backdrops and themes in many of the sets and it may help you to identify some of the scammers.

PM me your site if you wish and I may be able to spend some time to point some of them out, the other thing I may be able to do is offer is to help with some advice you could post on your site in regards to dealing with them for your members to learn the signs.

Another thing you may be able to do is include a link to www.scamwarners.com that is our sister site that deals directly with vicyims and potential victims by warning and educating, it would be best to ask one of the sites admins about it first though

Elite Baiter Joined: 11 Jul 2007 Posts: 1979

Hello DatingGuy! Dating sites are what made me start baiting. I'm single and found scammers are attracted to me like ants on sugar. I actually took myself off the dating market for a couple of years because of them. I just recently joined one that is my for my specific religion, thinking that would be safe and NO! It's crawling with the cockroaches too! I offered to help them clean house and they told me, "No thanks, they had a department to handle that." Only their department isn't. I still get a couple hits a day that I know are scammers. I report them but they're still there.

The smart ones are using proxies so you don't know they're in Africa. They don't always use model photos too. It's usually in the details of their profile. Subtle things like widowed with one child and employed as a contractor or how their poor grammar and spelling or trying to hookup with me from the opposite side of the country. Usually they hit on older women too - and sad to say, when they look at pictures, they look for plain janes (I use my own pic Sad

) who are likely to be flattered by a younger, attractive man hitting on them and a little desperate too.

I'd be happy to post a profile on your site. PM me the details.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:06 pm

My $0.02
The only way free date sites can make some money is collecting clicks on their advertisements on every page. It doesn't say members or scammers so it's not really important who clicks. When you throw out all scammers the most active part of your site (they frequently search for new possible victims or make new accounts to prevent getting caught by members) you are left with a part of real members and no action on the site which will turn off the real members and before you know it you get the message, no members here yet. If you check the new members and can see 95% is already banned, you might consider to move to another free date site.
Now if you do nothing, you have a busy site, with new members popping up all the time and as scanners know how to pick their pictures, there is an attractive crowd for new members to snoop through. You then can make some real money on scammers and members alike. After all what your members do with their money, can't be your concern, eh
As usual the economics rule the action, kill all and die or live and let die.

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:58 am

^^^ Unfortunately Bill, there is a lot of truth in what your saying Crying or Very sad

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:13 am

As always you have to find the delicate balance between the two, maybe marking known scammers as such without their knowledge keeps the game interesting for members too.

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:40 am

Here’s my take on it all –

We are now hitting the global credit crunch; this will an effect on crime levels. Prove me wrong but fraud is going to rise. Dating sites are going to be in the front line of these attacks, as people do not have the disposable income to spend in nightclubs, strip joints and bla bla. The firm belief is that this going to last about three years – so we are at a crest of massive wave, crime will rise and this will also effect websites.

The whole concept of dating websites are thwart with dangers, the obvious ones are your 419 scammers, and these are very easy to deal with. But not all scammers are from Nigeria and Philippines, unfortunately there are home-grown groups of scammers, paedophiles and other undesirables.

Any scammer will use any picture any photograph, Valds get paid to pose for pictures, why not Nigerian or even UK people! The key to everything is the IP and also baiting them – most of the scams are quick and straight to the point and their favourite weapon is YIM.

Keeping your members on the site with a workable chat rooms is the key to better member security – but constant screening is also key there should be a moderator on the site at least 12 hours a day.

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 3:45 am

datingguy wrote:

...I'm glad that there are people out there that are doing just as much to stop these people as these people are doing to scam. I guess for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? Keep it up guys. Smile

Equal and opposite may be an overstatement, but thanks for the nod. Very Happy

We're heavily outnumbered and outgunned, but we hit hard when we can. Twisted Evil

Best of luck with your site.

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:08 am

Another simply way to remove scammers from your membership lists, is to send out a bulk PM to all members, The message really is unimportant, You could say they haven't posted for a while and would they like to, blah, blah.
But you will find that scammers mostly use non-existent e-mails to register, So any PM's that fail to deliver, simply remove the registration,
Do this a couple of times a month, Then when you think you have cleared out the rubbish , just program it to happen once a month.

I got this message today from another forum, So this is also something you could do,,

Due to a huge number of bots registering and spamming the forum,I am banning all email addresses that are hotmail.com and gmail.com from tomorrow. So if you have or are using any of those email addys I suggest you update your email,

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:10 am

^^ There are a few problems with that,
Firstly most dating sites that I know of (and I do know of quite few) require an email address which the lads will happily provide.

Secondly, there are so many different email addies the lads know of and use so where would you stop, also consider the members of the site who do use those email addresses you ban, they are likely to just go to one of the countless other sites where it is much easier.

The ideas are well intentioned by I dont think they are practical.

Banning specific IPs on the other hand and regular screening coupled with good educational posts and warnings on the site asking members to report unusual behaviour, I am not an expert on keeping a dating site clean but we do have some members here who probably could say they are, teh methods they employ i would imagine are not unlike what i have suggested Wink

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:30 am

It's way tougher than that, the looker sites are being cleaned up by Began Steele and his crew, all scammers are banned, but the real members are getting the idea that there are no real members left and all people on date sites are bad and they slowly stay away, many times when I look there there is no one online.
As a money maker, collecting clicks its now not doing much anymore. From 37.000 + to barely 900 really limits the choice for real members.
Other sites where I like to fish, limit the rights of scammers, they are there, but "real"members can't see their profile or they have a warning on their page that the IP# isn't from where the owner claims to be. Members can't send them messages and maybe the other way around too, I don't know as they(the staff) haven't found me there yet Wink

And the bulk of the sites doesn't care who or what, click lots and the owner is happy.
Kinda what is happening in the real world too, we know they are there, but I haven't lost any money yet and you are stupid to give them some, it's your own fault. Boy I wish I had G. Buch's email addy Smile

I bet they would think of a working law real fast. Wink

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:16 pm

@ weareborg

You are going to loose more business? Why make it more difficult for members to sign up?

Scammers will adapt like the borg - their only weakness is the IP's- crack this code - and you have a good chance.

But I would also stress that is OK to bait suspicious accounts

Remember make sure you ban the IP and email address, scammers use great Yahoo ID's so they are easy to pick up.

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:05 am

datingguy, I'll help! Very Happy

PM on it's way!

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 31 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

Hi everyone. I have been very busy with my business and havent had alot of time to spend on the dating site. i returned to find what I would call a nightmare. Alot of cancellations from real members and even more new lousy scammers. Pretty soon there will be noone left but scammers scamming themselves. what a bunch of idiots. I am officially giving up. It is sad that these people have made it impossible for a regular guy like me to try out something new without it being ruined. I would have to spend thousands of dollars just to get more real members than scammers and sit in front of my computer 24/7 to get rid of the scammers. I think what bill said before may have something to it. I am either going to change the site altogether or just sit back and let them tear each other apart. what do you think?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 5:46 pm

I offered you my help to keep it clean and I know for sure several others here would like to help you too and I guess we still would give it a try, but you have to set it up a tad different, run a crew of moderators, just like the eater here and set some rules so members know they're safe and know where to complain with direct result.
Have a good look at this site,http://www.singlesnet.com/?setlocation=index&setarea=login become a member and see what they do to keep it to a minimum. It's so far the best free date site I could find.
I'm interested in the problem as I get my easy lads from there and as a social interesting case of how people interact on websites and how vulnerable they are while trying to get hooked up and the predators hunting for them.
I'm willing to put in a few hours a day to make it work the best we can, but you'll have to give us some rights there and set up a team of moderators so it will actually be done. Just telling you that so and so is/might be a scammer and never hear back wasn't working really well for me.

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:30 pm

Hi datingguy. I'd hate to see you have to throw all your work away. I'm new to the romance side of baiting, but I'd love to help bait a few and try to safari them around. PM me if you'd like. Very Happy

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