WARNING: BOGUS VIRUS WARNING PMs - contact a real admin

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » October 24th, 2009, 8:11 am

It has come to our notice that a member has recently received a Private Message offering medications for sale.

We do our utmost to ensure that spammers do not survive for long on our forums, and we are constantly on the look-out for suspicious user registrations and posts.

However, we cannot, of course, see your Private Messages. So we will only know if you are receiving spam in Private Messages if you tell us about it.

If you receive any such messages, please notify any member of the admin team.

Please copy and paste the sender's user name into your message so that we don't delete the wrong account.

Below is a list of currently active admins, but some are not online as often as others. Try to PM someone who is currently online. The names of online admins are in bold type at the foot of the Librivox Forum Index page.

annise
aradlaw
bart
Carl Manchester
chocoholic
Cori
dii
ezwa
Gesine
gloriana
gypsygirl
Hokuspokus
kayray
KiltedDragon
knotyouraveragejo
Leni
lezer
RuthieG
smijen
Starlite
TriciaG

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » January 20th, 2010, 8:06 am

Today we have heard of a user pretending to be an admin sending warning virus messages by PM.

These warnings are bogus and the site in the link given probably contains viruses.

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK.

Delete the PM and notify a real LibriVox admin immediately.

swoopy · Post by **swoopy** » January 20th, 2010, 12:12 pm

I did send a message to an online admin, but have yet to get a reply. I've now gotten two E-Mail messages (not PM's on site, but Email in my inbox) from no-reply@librivox.org. The first was saying I had a new Private Message - which I did click on, and there was no message. The second email was warning me of phishing via private messages. After the first message I changed my password, but then later received the second email which looked more suspicious than the first.

Please advise if Librivox has such an address, and is sending out E-mail now, or if these are part of the same phishing/spam problem.

Regards,

Robynn McCarthy

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » January 20th, 2010, 12:16 pm

The second email is legitimate. We do use that email address for notifications. I just checked my email and have the same one.

Esther

Post by **chocoholic** » January 20th, 2010, 12:22 pm

The first message you got would have been automatic notification that you had received a PM -- this is done by the forum software. The PM disappeared because the account from which it was sent had been deleted (i.e. it was the spammer).

January 20th, 2010, 12:26 pm

If you get an email saying you have a private message, but when you login, there isn't one, it generally means the PM was deleted by the sender out of their outbox before you logged in to read it. Unlike email, private messages stay in the sender's outbox until they are read by the addressee (and can therefore be deleted anytime before they are read).

If it was indeed one of these recent spam PMs, then it's likely that it was deleted when we deleted the spammer from the system.

swoopy · Post by **swoopy** » January 20th, 2010, 12:31 pm

Good to know! Thanks so much for clearing that up.

- Robynn McCarthy

mim@can · Post by **mim@can** » January 20th, 2010, 1:41 pm

Thanks to the Administrative Team members who were so quick to alert all of us to this scam. Chocoholic was very quick to warm me when I was sending a private message this morning. I very much appreciate it!

Ya all done good

Mim

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » February 9th, 2010, 8:53 am

Another user pretending to be an admin probably sending warning virus messages by PM. This time called ForumTeamSupports.

These warnings are bogus and the site in the link given probably contains viruses.

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK.

Please delete the PM.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » February 13th, 2010, 9:51 am

To all Librivoxers:

The genuine admins on this forum will NEVER send you a Private Message saying that you have a virus.

If you receive such a Private Message

notify an admin immediately and include the sender's user name.
do not click on any links in the message
delete the PM

Also, for your own protection, please ensure that you have good antivirus protection, and keep it up to date daily. We have noticed a dramatic increase in this evil activity on many forums recently, and we want you all to be safe.

Ruth

ExEmGe · Post by **ExEmGe** » February 24th, 2010, 12:42 pm

I've just received a text message allegedly from Hugh at
no-reply@librivox.org asking for money.
I assume this is spam?
Not that I wouldn't be prepared to give under cetain circumstances!!

Post by **KiltedDragon** » February 24th, 2010, 12:44 pm

Actually, you might want to go see here: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24397

ExEmGe · Post by **ExEmGe** » February 24th, 2010, 12:53 pm

Oh dear.
I'm obviously going blind as well as stupid

Cori · Post by **Cori** » June 7th, 2012, 11:23 am

As far as I know, this hasn't been an issue for a couple of years now, and would like to desticky this thread. But, does anyone know more than me about it and thinks that's a bad idea?

Post by **TriciaG** » June 7th, 2012, 11:35 am

I vote for de-stickying it.