Blogger blog marked as spam
I received a stern email from The Blogger Team overnight saying my site for Border Watch Editorials has been marked as an evil spam blog.
The email urges me to request a review if I dispute the classification and goes on to say:
“Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn’t reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we’ll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won’t be affected.” (more…)
ATO email scam
Another scam email that landed in my inbox claimed to be from the Australian Taxation Office.
Purporting to be from the email address refund@ato.com.au it said I was entitled to a $250 refund on my Visa or Mastercard.
I knew it was fraudulent immediately, of course. The ATO doesn’t have my Yahoo! address, doesn’t communicate by unsolicited email and doesn’t give refunds on credit cards.
Also, I had seen a media release from the Tax Office on a different but related scam.
The Tax Office is warning people to be wary of a fraudulent email being circulated that claims to offer a 30% discount on their taxes. The email uses the Tax Office logo and the words ‘Cut Off Taxes Program (COTP) has been released – Join Now’ in the subject heading …
The subject heading in my email was “Message from the Australian Government”.
This article in The Age suggests the dodgy ATO emails are now common.
The scam ATO email, which promises a $250 bonus on top of a tax return, links the taxpayer to an online form that asks for personal details including ATM pin, credit card details and tax file number. Instead of submitting the form online, the website asks for a printed version to be mailed to an address.
While on one hand these scams are getting more sophisticated, they might suck more people in if they employed someone who speaks English.
My email asked me to complete the “formular”.
Comment spam problem continues
I found out today that a legitimate comment was blocked as spam, so I’ve disabled the WP-SpamFree plugin for the time being.
Apologies to anyone else who was blocked.
The problem with Akismet is I have to trawl through blocked comments to check them. WP-SpamFree doesn’t have that facility, which is attractive if it works and problematic if it doesn’t.
Commonwealth Bank email spam
I’m sick of receiving spam emails claiming to be from the Commonwealth Bank. They have been flooding my ymail address for weeks and now they’re infiltrating my Google hosted email as well.
I’m not even a customer of the Commonwealth Bank.
But every message needs to be read and marked as spam, which wastes time and effort.
I like to read emails straight away, and as soon as I get an alert there’s a new message I tend to visit the inbox and read it. These are some of the recent emails: (more…)
Eating spam is yummy!
After being inspired by Sybil Law, I checked my spam folder on Google Mail. It’s fascinating.
Top of the list was an email from Katrina Madelyn offering me drugs from a Canadian pharmacy, including Viagra and others I had never head of like Flomax and Rockit247. ViagraOralJelly sounds interesting.
Nestor Sheppard, whose email address is ColbyaffinitySheppard@wowhead.com, wrote: “A top team of British scientists and medical doctors have worked to develop the state-of-the-art penis enlargement patch delivery system which automatically increases penis size up to 3-4 full inches.”
Estele Engle wants to date me: “I’m a pretty woman, brunette with brown eyes, and I’m looking for an intelligent man to communicate by email, Skype, or on real dates!”
Astrology.com thinks I’m gay: “A psychic can help you get inside his mind – so that you can win back his heart.” Wrong!
Natalia asks me: “Are you unlucky in finding a perfect wife?” and links me to a Russian site.
etc …
I really like Google’s spam filter.
Using reCAPTCHA to combat comment spam
I liked Mollom because it stopped spam and didn’t leave anything for me to moderate.
Unfortunately, when it triggered a captcha for suspicious posts those people were having trouble.
I’m now using reCAPTCHA. I’ve seen it on a lot of sites and didn’t realise until today there was a WordPress plugin.
I recall checking it out several months ago and thought it was too complicated to install. It’s very easy now.
Mollom spam killer
At various times over the past few years I’ve used Akismet and Defensio to block comment spam. I’m now trying Mollom and I’m pleased with the early results.
The problem with Akismet and Defensio is they sometimes block genuine comments. Manual checking is the only way to find out.
On days when my sites are flooded with spam, that has meant scanning through up to 100 comments. (more…)
