Hello from Beaverton, OR

[Dean_Futrell]

Hello my name is Dean Futrell, and I am the owner of Futrell Autowerks. We are a full service, repair, tune-up facility for Volkswagen and Audi, servicing the Beaverton/Portland Area.

I've been a small business owner for over 10 years, and can't wait to become an active member of this forum.

[vangogh]

That's funny since you were Larry Pattenaude, a discount mover from Phoenix Arizona last month. Who will you be next month? I can't wait to see. Maybe we can run a pool to guess what date you'll next arrive and with what username. Won't that be fun.

[Steve B]

I didn't know we were allowed to change identities!!!! I want to be Bill from Billings Montana - talent scout for Victoria's Secret.

[rezzy]

I didn't know we were allowed to change identities!!!! I want to be Bill from Billings Montana - talent scout for Victoria's Secret.

Wouldnt that be an awesome job, where do I apply?

[vangogh]

Steve I can easily change your username and you could then change your location. You'll need to convince us all that you're the talent scout you say you are, which may be a little more difficult, especially now that you've mentioned it in public. :)

[billbenson]

Hysterical!

[KristineS]

This it too funny. At least the spammers are getting a bit more clever. I guess that's not really a good thing though.

[vangogh]

I assume this was a company hired to build links for customers. What was funny was a quick search showed that Larry joined a whole lot of forums about a month ago all on the same day or two and oddly enough Dean was the newest member of every one of those forums last night. Both had remarkably similar intro posts too.

Note to spammers: If you don't want to get caught, don't leave such an obvious footprint.

[cbscreative]

I doubt most spammers read to see your note, but if they do, should we be telling them how we detect their misdeeds? I agree, this is probably one of those link building riff raff. As a service to the business community, beware of the way some link building is done. You could be paying for something just like this.

[vangogh]

I'm not too concerned about giving away some secret of how this person got caught. Is it possible someone who's planning on spamming will read this and learn something? Sure. Odds are they won't. This might also help someone who's fighting spam better understand what to look for.

[cbscreative]

Yeah, your real secret is that you're a robot programmed to smell spam from miles away, so it's not like much will slip by you. On top of that, spammers aren't very smart, they only think they are.

[KristineS]

Spammers don't strike me as real ambitious, enterprising types. Their whole method is about taking shortcuts. I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry that they will figure out our spam fighting secrets.

[Business Attorney]

I don't think most of the spammers even care if a particular post is deleted. It's all about volume. I am a moderator on another forum where the bulk of the spam is so blatant it is immediately deleted when a moderator sees it. Fortunately for the spammers, there are thousands of forgotten, unmoderated forums where their spam can sit forever, unseen by human eyes but getting minute amounts of link "juice." There are other relatively inactive forums where the spam can sit for a week or two before it is deleted.

I actually think that many of the spammers ARE smart enough that they could figure out what gets their posts deleted, but doing the right things are too much trouble for someone who is making $11.95 for 1,000 forum posts.

[vangogh]

I actually think that many of the spammers ARE smart enough that they could figure out what gets their posts deleted, but doing the right things are too much trouble for someone who is making $11.95 for 1,000 forum posts.

I agree. Some spammers are just kiddies playing with a new toy, but some are quite intelligent. You can tell by how they try to appear real even with an automated script. It's the money more than anything that limits how far they'll go. Of course not all spammers are running automated programs. Some are manually posting.