Hi everyone
We're looking into why there's been a surge in spam posts recently and will update you when we have answers. In the meantime, we need your help. If you come across a post that looks like spam or violates our guidelines, please report it.
Just 2 user reports will automatically remove the post from the forum. Your quick action helps keep spammers out.
Thanks for being an essential part of the Online Community.
Sharon Mod
It seems to happen in the night and then they're removed in the morning so it may depend on what time you log in. I've not been opening them to know the content but the subject titles were largely just filled with what looked like nonsense and there were loads of either identical or very similar posts all in one go.
It does. Thanks 
it may work on a proper computer, but I'm using a mobile phone and it doesn't have a mouse or a cursor.
For an iPhone you can get a cursor fairly easily - step by step instructions are here:
https://help.macally.com/help/how-to-get-a-cursor-on-the-iphone-ipad
I'm sure Android has a similar feature (Apple probably copied it knowing them).
Maybe I've got some kind of inbuilt spam filter, because apart from the obvious spam about finanical services I've not seen any. I do notice that at weekends there tends to be a rash of posts from new member's I've never heard of before, I know the weekend is a convienent time for many people to join somewhere like this and I've suspected some are spam or fake accounts, but I don't know.
What is all this spam, apart from the obvious financial stuff?
Thank you so much for keeping the community safe.
I've been reporting when I've seen any spam.
Hopefully this surge of spam bots will be short lived ^^
""Rule 11: No spam. Under our rules, spam includes: advertisements, repetitive posts, links to harmful sites that may contain malware, scams or messages generated by software rather than a human user."
Usually the account is brand new and this is the only post - which breaks Rule 11 because it is an advert out of context of a thread discussion
Bad signs are posts quoting quoting international telephone numbers / WhatsApp contacts.
The topics msy be about things nobody on our community respecting the rules would talk about - like legal advice or medical advice.
The rapidity of multiple posts faster than mist people could type / copy and paste may be another clue.
Often there may strange additional characters in the text.
Links with no explanation about whst they sre for.
Links whose names don't look as though they were likely to match what was bring described in the text.
Anything urgently encouraging something to be done by a deadline / quickly.
Multiple new profiles all posting the same or very similar content.
...the post has been there a while and everyone else has decided not to reply.
If if doubt: do not press random links.
If you think a post or reply breaks the rules: press "more" then "flag to moderator".
If you are worried by a post / reply:: you can email the Community Manager via CommunityManager@nas.org.uk
Hope that helps.
Ahh, I see... So how do you tell the difference between someone spamming in that way or just genuinely wanting to express how that company/app/site/etc. helped them?
I'm not defending anyone, I'm genuinely curious because I know I have done this 2 or 3 times with pure intentions of explaining how I have been helped...
Hi everyone,
Thank you for all your help with the surge in spam posts recently.
We have taken action to keep the online community safe, now all new accounts will be briefly moderated before they can post. This means that when someone joins, their first few posts may be held for review while our moderators check that they’re not bots or spam accounts. Once verified, they’ll be able to post freely just like everyone else.
Once again thanks for all your help and being an essential part of the online community.
If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to email us at CommunityManager@nas.org.uk.
Katrina Mod
So then Nigerian prince who offered me a £100 share in his bitcoin millions wirh a return of billions wasn’t real?
all jokes aside though these people grind my gears
In case anyone hasn’t yet seen it, there’s a (very welcome) update on this here:
From your efforts and mine, and probably others, it doesn’t look likely that only two reports are needed to remove a spam post.
I find if you hover your cursor over it you get a preview. At the bottom there's the three dots to click on which gives a flag option.
My first post by the way. Diagnosed at 59. More a lurker than a poster.
Back to the flagging.
Another massive spam attack this morning. What worries me is that you have to open the post to get to the 'more' option.
By clicking on the post to open it we could be risking downloading malware or viruses.
If we could report it by not clicking it first, then we risk reporting innocent posts by mistake.
A no win situation.
I have put in 1 hour of effort on this campaign this morning - and they are still arriving at pace.
I am over and out
People (please): it is time to drop the service and analyse further offline.
This morning the spam messages are arriving at a rate of 2 or 3 per minute.
Isn't it possible to monitor for and quarantine the rashes of multiple new profiles all being established in short order - well out of the platform's typical experience / performance?
Does it need to be 2 users - or would a double report from 1 user count too?
Fun fact.....in the time it took me to write that post here.... the spam posts had reached 73no.
Sharon....you seem well-meaning......but just saying "two reports from users =no spam"....seems to be miss-characterising the problem with this NAS Community Forum at the moment?
I currently see 24no. spam emails on this NAS Community forum. That's a lot. The inappropriate "hair-trigger" against genuine content, inappropriate "pre-approval" decisions for "pre-approved" entities, is now matched with an equivqlent ineptitude/inability to prevent the most basic ACTUAL spam!
I'm happy to report spam...but 24no?! Perhaps an "undelyimg" problem exists here now, with the platform and its management?
Another type of spam you might see: anything promoting recovery services to do with bitcoin / cryptocurrency / Blockchain - they usually are pretend stories about how a company helped them and the post includes links and telepjone numbers snd WhatsApp details.
