No cash, no cards, no passport, no ID: granny in Greece needs her UK account

London7766551

I notice most of these threads with stories made up seem to be by accounts which were created a couple of years ago but have no posts. One wonders what purpose this operation serves, perhaps some kind of scam. Perhaps a regular cull of accounts would solve the problem. i.e if your account is not used for 18 months it is deleted. New accounts could be checked with some form of verification required to make sure you are legit. As much as possible while maintaining privacy. I know another forum that does this.

Yahoo_Mail

London7766551 said:

I notice most of these threads with stories made up seem to be by accounts which were created a couple of years ago but have no posts. One wonders what purpose this operation serves, perhaps some kind of scam. Perhaps a regular cull of accounts would solve the problem. i.e if your account is not used for 18 months it is deleted. New accounts could be checked with some form of verification required to make sure you are legit. As much as possible while maintaining privacy. I know another forum that does this.

Probably to make them appear more genuine.  Of course, it doesn't do any good. Rather than first-time posters with brand new accounts creating these nonsense threads we just have first time posters with 2-year-old ones doing instead.

(And yes, I am aware in this instance it is much older than that.)

colsten

Seems a bit far fetched that somebody would sign up to MSE, not post anything beyond one or two initial posts, with the sole intention to post a fairytale story several years later.

London7766551

colsten said:

Seems a bit far fetched that somebody would sign up to MSE, not post anything beyond one or two initial posts, with the sole intention to post a fairytale story several years later.

Nevertheless there appears to be a patten to these threads.

Thrugelmir

colsten said:

Seems a bit far fetched that somebody would sign up to MSE, not post anything beyond one or two initial posts, with the sole intention to post a fairytale story several years later.

Probably on furlough and has only returned to the site recently as was bored. Many members don't post when they join simply browse. 

born_again

colsten said:

Seems a bit far fetched that somebody would sign up to MSE, not post anything beyond one or two initial posts, with the sole intention to post a fairytale story several years later.

Spammers do just that.
Either try spamming straight away., but they are easy to weed out.
Old account that is used a couple of times, so long as a sensible post will often go unnoticed. Ready to be picked up and used later.
Which is why a cull after so long inactivity, as suggested above is a good idea.