Locked down? Nothing to do? Comment spam will keep you busy!

Interesting. When we locked down here in the U.S. in March, I noted a steep drop in both email spam and telephone cold calls coming into both work and home. That continued for a while, though this summer, it started to pick up again. But it still is not anywhere near where it had been before the shutdown. The only thing that stayed constant throughout the shutdown for me was spam outreach on LinkedIn.

 

Agree, increased spam content is sadly another by product of the pandemic. Sadly with the lockdown there are people taking advantage, heard on the news yesterday that spam phone calls decreased in the first part of 2020, but in the last half of the year they picked up. So too were people going around houses claiming to be bogus officials.

 

That's been going on for decades. One of the more popular scams has been for scammers to dress up as telephone or utility repairmen to get access to vulnerable people's homes. They then steal as much as they can while wandering around the home right under the noses of the victims. Another popular scam has been to find homeowners working outside their home. One scammer keeps the homeowners occupied with surveys, etc., while others sneak into the empty home to rob it. This has been going on long before the Internet even existed, of course.

 

You seem to know very intimately how that stuff happens...

 

It is in the local news at least once or twice a year as police departments try to warn the citizenry about these ongoing scams.

 

Yes, I saw a program only yesterday on television about how an elderly lady had had two people pretending to be from the local health authority, thankfully nothing was taken and more importantly she wasn't harmed. Policy officers were saying that usually when that happens it's because the bogus 'officials' didn't see anything of value. Either way, it's sad, especially during the pandemic as well. Scrupulous people sadly.

 

Spamming is a fun activity, I'm not gonna lie. Such a simple button mashing, but the result is so satisfying.

 

I just checked and deleted 300 plus spam comments from my blog's spam folder. I amazed that people can think such an activity (spamming people's blog comment sections) to be funny and satisfying when so many profitable things are available for one to do online. I think people who derive pleasure from indulging in this sort of behavior have heads full of the most reeking and toxic refuse on our planet.

 

Spamming is not only for idle people some just use it for fun especially this pandemic period people have too much time.