Advice to Spammers

[Thumper]

This post is not for the benefit of our regular members, or those making legitimate applications to join The Anglo French Forum, but it may be of interest to the many hundreds of spammers who apply to join this - and other forums - each month.

All applications to join TAFF are checked rigorously by members of the forum's Admin staff. Not only are IP addresses checked against an international database to help identify would-be spammers, but usernames, email addresses and hostnames are also examined.

If your username includes nonsense letters or suggestive words, your application will be rejected.

If your email address is not obviously applicable to a real person, your application will be rejected.

If your email address is a Google mail address, there is a 99% chance that your application will be rejected.

If your IP address, email or hostname originates from outside Europe or the USA, there is a 99% chance that your application will be rejected.

After an application has been rejected once, the use of any of the original data to attempt a second or subsequent application will result in automatic rejection and banning from this forum. In addition, the details of any rejected application will be added to a major shared database that will be used by administrators on other forums to judge the validity of a new member's credentials.

[RickC]

 . . . . . and just to add a bit of context we've rejected over one thousand six hundred such applications!

[Thumper]

Please note that, as a result of a rapidly growing reputation for being a source of scams, spamming, and pfishing emails, we have had to introduce a blanket ban on all emails registered with gmx.com. This does not affect any of our existing members, and legitimate prospective members are advised to apply using an alternative account. We apologise for any inconvenience.

At the moment we are still accepting applicants using Google's gmail accounts. However, would-be members are advised that applications made using a gmail account will be subjected to rigorous examination prior to approval . . . or, more usually, rejection.