NEW MEMBERSHIP DENIED?

[Frank Ford]

Lately there has been a daily barrage of obvious spammers applying for membership here at FRETS.NET.

Some time ago, I added those simple questions to weed out those bots or people who obviously don't belong, and every day I deny the membership to a dozen or more automated responses (usually two random letters).

Sometimes, though, I do manage to push the "deny" by accident.  PLEASE try again to register if that happens to you!

Cheers,

Frank

[T retnev]

Sounds like you have your hands full.
Now that you confirmed that it was a scammer, here is the email address he used:

[e-mail]

So users, be careful when receiving mail from this address.

[Grant Groberg]

yep, that's the email address they signed up with... they're gone

[T retnev]

Grant,

Here is another one received today.

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Brice Lodugnon added a comment to your profile on FRETS.NET

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Hello

How is everything with you, my name is Stephen Bollin,I picked interest on you after going through your short profile and deemed it necessary to write you immediately. I have something very vital to disclose to you, but I found it difficult to express myself here, since it's a public site. Could you please get back to me on:([e-mail]) for the full details.

Have a nice day
Stephen Bollin.
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[Grant Groberg]

Hi T Retnev

yes, they spammed me too..
I kicked them about an hour ago.

I really appreciate you letting me know. 
Frets.net is a useful community we need to keep it that way!

[Grant Groberg]

He folks,

Sorry about letting Ron Morris in. they answered the questions but I received a spam so they have been suspended... and I see they have done this before... I will have to make a list and check it twice.

[T retnev]

More Scammers

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Kristalina added a comment to your profile on FRETS.NET

From	FRETS.NET
To	T retnev
Reply-To	[e-mail]
Date	Today 19:10

Summary Headers

Kristalina added a comment to your profile on FRETS.NET

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Good day,

I have something very important to discuss with you but I find it difficult because here is a public site. Could you please get back to me on my email address ([e-mail]) for details.

Regards
Kristalina!
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[Frank Ford]

Hi T retnev

The spammer got me too.. so I deleted them quick. Thanks for reporting this. 
funny thing is that they answered the two questions... but they only mentioned guitar as the instrument they played... maybe we should limit this to only banjo players :-)

then again not every luthier plays and instrument, they just like working with beautiful things

fortunately the spammers seem to be dumb enough to spam *everybody* so I am able to catch them.

[T retnev]

I have been thinking about ways to stop this, but in the era of Grok, anyone can get high level answers to questions, not having a clue themselves, so a new member area for new registrations to be cleared through questions by users will not work either.   Maybe disable PM, and only allow it once a user actually made say 10 informative  posts. They will likely be exposed this way before they can get to using PM.