CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlhtmlsecurityemail
user188962
user188962

Reputation:

Scam mail beeing sent to my classified posters

I have a classifieds website, and anybody may view the classifieds which people post.

People don't need to be a member or anything to view, or contact a poster.

The problem I have today is that people receive alot of scam-mail from others, who intend to scam them off their money etc...

The process of sending an email to a poster, is to click "Email Poster" and fill out the form. The form then submits to a php page, which checks against a database that the same message hasn't been sent from the same IP within the last hour, just as a spam measure.

Also I do check so the same ip doesn't send messages on the same classified more than twice, regardless of text, within 10 minutes.

I have some other filters as well, but they don't help 100%.

They still manage to send out one email every hour, my god they are persistent.

Is there any other method to 100% prevent these scam mails? Or do I simply have to live with it?

Thanks

Upvotes: 0

Views: 204

Answers (3)

Andre Backlund
Andre Backlund

Reputation: 6943

  • Add a captcha challenge to your form, such as reCAPTCHA.

  • You could ban the IP from sending any emails together if they hit the
    sending limit three times in a row.

  • You could require the sender to click a confirmation link that is sent to
    their own email, before the recipient receives their email.

Taking the comments into consideration, I'll add more ways to battle them.

  • Require senders to connect with a well know social site (eg. Facebook) to authenticate themselves.

  • Block entire countries from sending emails - some countries have a lot more scammers than others.

  • Alternatively only allow people to send email to recipients from the same country. (ie. User posts classified from USA, then only IPs from USA can respond)

Upvotes: 3

Albireo
Albireo

Reputation: 11095

Are you using CAPTCHAs to prevent bots abusing your system?

Upvotes: 1

user7094
user7094

Reputation:

Have you considered using something like the Akismet API? Obviously it depends on the kind of spam but that might help.

Upvotes: 0

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