Possible hack of an account

torbrex

I just spotted a spam message on the ebay board from a user that as far as I could see had no previous record of spamming, unfortunately the thread was deleted before I could note the OP's name.
I wonder if the OP's account had been hacked as their previous 3 posts were not ebay or selling related and they had not posted for well over a year.

Savvy_Sue

We do sometimes notice things like this, someone who hasn't been active for a year will suddenly start posting quite random things. Like you, I don't know if someone's joined ages ago, not posted to lull us into a false sense of security, or if it's a hack.

But all you can do is report.

torbrex

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

We do sometimes notice things like this, someone who hasn't been active for a year will suddenly start posting quite random things. Like you, I don't know if someone's joined ages ago, not posted to lull us into a false sense of security, or if it's a hack.

But all you can do is report.

I wish that I could have actually hit the report button but the thread was removed while I was checking the OP's history that was the reason for starting this thread.
Sadly I had navigated away before I thought too deeply about it otherwise I would have used my browser buttons to go back and get the OP's user profile again. Their previous 3 posts looked to be genuine enquiries and initial sign-up was well over 2 years ago as their first post was in a thread that has been locked on the 2 year rule.

forgotmyname

Typical of some spammers. Join lots of forums over the space of a few weeks. Make a hello post or ask something, Or just reply to a thread.

Then nothing until the account bypasses any spam blocks. There was one earlier. 3 posts in various threads. Nothing out of place. Then the spam started.
1st post just offering friendly advice with a link. Then another older/unrelated threaded same link...

torbrex

That is why I check the posters previous history, I check to see if they are genuine or just use random posts to build their count, I have become quite good at spotting the spammers long before they actually start.
In this case the OP's history showed no sign of this prior to today's thread, I just with that I had noted the name before the thread was deleted, probably under the spam button hits rule.

fermi

If the thread has been spam buttoned, or otherwise removed or reported, then hopefully the forum team are on it.