Beware! Affiliate spammers have infiltrated innocent online groups, looking to take advantage of the people who haven’t yet heard that “free” trials of magic diet foods are a scam.
I recently joined a Meetup.com group for local knitters because my actual friends stubbornly refuse to take up knitting. This afternoon, the following message came through:
Hey, I saw that we were in the same group. I just wanted to ask you to check out my diet blog and tell me what you think of it. It’s my story of how I lost 40+ pounds after having 3 kids! My link is http://www.marciasweightloss.com if you have any questions feel free to message me back, Thanks!
Hey, funny how “Marcia” lives in San Diego when this group is based in New York. And how her blog looks like dozens of other acai scam blogs I’ve seen.
Edit: Meetup acknowledge and explained the problem this afternoon. Good for them!
Unfortunately, Meetup groups aren’t the only venue for spam. Messages similar to this one have started appearing on Freecycle lists across the country:
SUBJECT: [OFFER] My Leftover Colon Cleanse Product SEALED – Downtown
I got the results i wanted from using this, and I have some
left over which I don’t really need it anymore. (It’s for
losing weight if you didn’t know already)
Some moderators see what’s up and let it through; others don’t. You can guess how this works—anyone who e-mails asking for the free product gets a link to a site where they can get their very! own! free! trial! Similar scams are run with spammers purportedly giving away video game consoles, computers, and iPods. The poster claims that the item is gone, but if you just click here and fill out some offers, you can get your very own Dell laptop or Wii, for free!
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Meetup has actually already resolved this problem and you can find the information here:
[www.facebook.com]
These kinds of methods are some of the biggest money makers, becasue by being part of the group (if if you joined 30 seconds before you posted the ad) you are automatically trusted more.
Laura, this is Consumerist. I think you need to get rid of the “R” in the name of the group you joined, and move the “N”. Because we all know you were looking for local Kittens!
@2DaysTillTheState_GitEmSteveDave: It’s time I let the readers of Consumerist in on my terrible secret: I’m allergic to cats.
@2DaysTillTheState_GitEmSteveDave: Kittens are very hard to make into things. They run around too much to be a good scarf, and when you try to put a bunch together to be a blanket they start smacking each other. Then the claws come out and your PJs are in tatters!
And don’t get me started on casting off kittens…
@mizmoose: Burger and Fries disagrees with your comment.
warning, turn down your volume.
I got that message via Meetup too.
The article mentions they blocked a domain name of throw-away email accounts. Anyone know what domain name that is so I can add it to some other blocking databases?
@Skaperen: When I wrote a piece of software to determine where our glut of Spam was coming from (we were recieving 50,000 per day at a very small company. Roughly 500 per day per user) I found something very interesting. Roughly 90% of them were coming from the APNIC networks. Once I banned all of China from my servers, we plummited from 500 per user per day, to 50. Those were cleaned up by banning the offending IPs systematically (mostly LATNIC and RIPE networks) and within a month, we had absolutely NO Spam coming in. I haven’t worked for that company for 2 years now, but they still use the filter system I put in place.
@Javin: I did something similar at my last company, except our sources were Russia, Brazil, and China. It’s amazing what can be ignored when you don’t participate in international business.
@Skaperen: I received one of the spam messages yesterday. Here is the email address mine came from: marcia5450356@mobilestar.info
Unfortunately you can’t account for the sheer stupidity of some people. Even ‘educated’ wealthy people are not exempt, as entire aisles of homeopathic medicines and over price exotic fruit juices at every single Whole Foods will attest to.
@satoru: So wait, you’re saying that diluting a ingredient 30x in water DOESN’T retain it’s essence or energy therein?
@HoneybunsCandy_GitEmSteveDave: It’s not diluted 30 times. It’s diluted 1-to-10 or 1-to-100, and then THAT solution is diluted again to the same proportion, and then this process is repeated until it’s been done thirty times. (The 1-to-10 dilution is a 30X: the 1-to-100 is a 30C.) When it’s all over, the probability that there’s even a single molecule of the original substance left is as close to zero as you’d care to calculate.
Since nearly all of the water on Earth has been around for billions of years and is constantly moving around, you’d figure that every possible substance has been repeatedly and infinitely diluted into it, and so by the principles of homeopathy a glass of water from your tap would cure all illnesses. Strangely, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Something like this has shown up recently in LinkedIn, too. I’ve gotten more than a few spammy “invitations” to view websites etc from people who randomly join Groups I’m a member of on LinkedIn, and then send messages to all members.
There’s no “report this message as spam” button in LinkedIn.
As an organizer of Meetup.com Maryland Japanese + English Language Club, I saw this hit two of my sister Japanese meetups in DC. The problem was that both meetups were open to anyone (including Marcia) to join. My group requires a request to join which can help to keep at least some spammers out.
I’ve known that there is the potential for this to happen on Meetup.com and any other SNS for that matter.
This happened on my FreeCycle group a few months ago, someone joined and then spammed the group later with a link to one of those “I got a free (product) here’s how you can get one too!” sites.
I think the admin broke the sound barrier with how fast she swung the banhammer.
I’d never heard of the meetup site but I’ll have to sign up. Might be a good way to meet local boardgamers.
Where are the “free money” posts? Sign me up for that!
That picture was taken in Rainbow food co-op! I LOVE that place!
Weird coincidence. I just found meetup for the first time yesterday.
I’m going mountain biking tomorrow and hopefully found some other people that camp.
Got the same message. Thing is, I live in San Diego. Thing also is, I’m not stupid enough to not immediately realize it’s spam.