Stopping Spamming Users! I'm sick of users posting trying to sell Nokia phones, etc!!

How do I stop spammers from registering at my forum?!

I have 2-3 spammers, all user accounts have different IPs, registering at my forum daily posting spam threads trying to sell cell phones and PS3's!

My forum isn't even on that topic and I am using vBulletin's image code verification and email authentication system for new registered users but they still register and post threads!

How do I stop it!? I hate it! I have to moderate so much a day and my forum isn't even big!

 

i have temporarily disable my forum for this exact reason...

 

If it's the same text being pasted and posted, or even just the same domain in the link, you can setup filters to catch it.

I don't know what features vBulletin has but if it's not already in the ACP, there should be a mod that'll help. At best, they might automatically ban the spammer, otherwise just a simple "badword" censoring of the link should put them off.

Do they have anything in common? All signing up with email accounts from the same domain or one of those disposable email account services (both of which you could block)?

 

Why not using their domains, IP's or range of IP's for banning this way via .htaccess:

<Limit GET>
order allow,deny
deny from whatever.proxy.aol.com
deny from somedomain.com
deny from 202.68.146.133
deny from 219.65.
deny from 60.
</limit>

Code (markup):

changing the above values for those of the spammers. I stopped spam that way long ago when I had an active forum.

 

Don't most spammers use throwaway domains and I believe most spambots can easily change ips to evade such measures.

 

I have this same problem on my forum, I just delete their posts and ban them, less and less come back.

 

ban them straight away,
captacha good option , i am facing same issue, but after image verification spam has reduced then before.

 

SirAdrian has an interesting add-on called Prevent Spam Posts for vBulletin that sends posts with certain keywords or phrases to moderation. That at least makes it easy to delete the things and ban the posters.

The best way is to require admin approval of new registrations - most of these are not that easy for a human admin to spot.

 

We've had good luck with just banning the IP range... most are from similar IPs.

 

check vbulleting forum they are some hacks that can help

 

The IPs just keep changing. There's no way to keep up with them.

Try the vB hack I mentioned above.

 

looks good, thinking of installing it, do you use it?

 

I dont use VB, but this is how i combat the spammers in the forum section of my site:

• I require validation via an email link before members can post
• I have a PHPScript called Bad Behavior that stops most spambots cold
• I setup filters that catch various words, and ALL urls (how often does a real user post a URL?) and puts them into moderation
• I ban known IPs of spammers
• I have moderators that can cleanup the rest (which isnt very much, if any)

With my five-pronged attack, it's not an issue for me.

 

I've seen it in use on another forum where I used to moderate.

I don't use it myself because all registrations require admin approval.

 

They useing Xrumer , its a wicked program.

 

On some forums, quite often actually...

 

Right now I'm helping a friend to test myBB Forum and it has exactly the same plugin, the only difference is that you have to pay for vBulletin while myBB is free.

Interesting, I will try it

 

You might want to check this out.. http://www.vbshack.net/forum/showthread.php?p=346#post346