Modern Vespa

We've been getting hit with an onslaught of spam today. Which sucks.

My thanks to DougL for cleaning up the mess.

The scam is mostly originating out of India, and it is a pretty blatant attempt to get fake customer service phone numbers absorbed into Google. Their hope is that when people google for a given customer service number (airlines, banks, Coinbase) they get the fake phone number instead, which leads to a fake overseas call center (usually in India or Pakistan) where scammers attempt to separate unwitting victims from their life savings.

And they are fairly successful at it, especially with elderly victims that don't fully comprehend what is happening. People regularly lose tens of thousands of dollars in these scams.

There are a number of people on Youtube whose whole schtick is reverse-scamming the scammers. Here's an example:

We're still getting a lot of new registrations that look and smell like spammers. I am deleting them on site at this point, rather than waiting for them to actually start spamming the forum.

We're getting a fresh one every 10 minutes or so.

You're welcome. I don't think that I have ever seen so much spam on here; the first three pages on GD were all spam. Thanks for making it easier to clean up.

Well done to all the MV crew.

At home we sometimes get robo-scam calls. If I'm not up to much at the time, I will always press #1 and get to talk to a real life scammer. The aim is to waste as much of their time as possible, so they're not scamming someone's grandparents in the meantime. It's both a fun game and public service, and I encourage everyone to do the same.
I appreciate it's just a drop in the ocean of the industrial scam machine, but it just might save an elderly persons life savings. And if not, pissing off a scammer is a win in itself.

I am getting a "http/1.1 403 Forbidden this is address has been banned" message for the last couple of days on my computer. Maybe a few days more. Don't remeber at this point. Only posting this from my phone on the cell network, once i turned it off the wifi. Saw the huuuuge list of spam once I got in to the main page. Is this related to my issue? I can take this to PM if needed.

Probably unrelated. PM me the IP address on the device where the problem is happening. You can find your public IP at: https://whatismyipaddress.com

You can also email support@modernvespa.com if you find yourself completely locked out.

Pm sent. Thanks.

They are still at it....

I'm watching them attempt to register in semi-real-time. I think it's just one or two people in Delhi, India.

And as many times as they manage to post a fake customer service phone number, they are being blocked many more times from registering a new account, either because their IP address is known to be spammy, or their email address is known to be spammy, or a couple of other factors that I won't divulge.

Needless to say, I'm actually amused by how much effort they are wasting. Because they will never, ever win.

Maybe they are trying to notify you that your Xfinity account is going back to full price soon! I hate scammers so much. Thank you to all that know how to delete them from the website. Very annoying I'm sure.

I always get the above scam email. I just report it to my email host page as Phishing. What awesome scams do you get on the regular? Might as well share info so others know whats out there in scam land.

maaaaaan you mean that wasn't the phone number for every airline and financial institution's customer service? NOW what am i gonna do ugh....

Try and get the cops to physically break in to the Bitcoin ATM where you deposited your life savings.

(This is an actual thing).

All I know about bitcoin is it seems to have been invented by scammers for scammers, like a untraceable money highway to nowhere. If I had to pay for something in bitcoin I'd just ignore it. They can go thru the courts and send me to collections to get their bitcoin payment.

Mmmmmmmm.....Spam!

But seriously, this stuff is worse than spam -- it's the tip of a very deep scammy iceberg.

"Bloody Vikings...."

Must be celebrating the anniversary of Spam.

Hah!