Scammers and Spammers
Spam is the Internet equivalent of junk mail ‐ email you didn't ask for, and probably don't want. It's sent by spammers, usually using automated tools. Freecycle members will often have their own spam filters to detect and remove ‐ that's up to them. This answer just talks about what you can do as a moderator to reduce the chance of your Freecycle group being used for spam.
Spammers attack Freecycle groups in the following ways:
- Sending spam to the group, from their own account
- Spoofing another member.
- Harvesting member addresses.
- Posting seemingly innocuous messages that require going to a third-party website
Freecycle's Spam Control team (spamcontrol@freecycle.org) does a great job of catching most spammers before they can do much harm, and you can help by reporting any spam attempts that you catch on your group.
When reporting a Spammer send an email (with as much detail as possible) to spamcontrol@freecycle.org and add these five things:
- The spammer's MyF User Name
- The spammer's MyF email address
- The reason (e.g. iPod scammer)
- The post ID.
- Your group ID (name and number, please), which is found on your group's Info and Options page.
