Polls for Our Souls discussion

IMPORTANT NOTICE! PLEASE READ.
message: We have just been told about this new suspicious event that has occurred to many big groups here on GR. Perhaps some of you may have heard of it.

Message from another:
Hey guys, this is kinda important. I got a message from a friend:

"I'm not sure if you know about this, but there seem to be some suspicious accounts that are joining groups en mass. These accounts have not more than 5 books on their account, no other reviews, no comments, and are in joining a suspicious number of groups - ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 groups. Here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... is a discussion on it. Some of their profiles have links to questionable websites and also lewd words in obscure places."

I suggest you read this discussion and apparently it's happening in various groups. Members with no profile pics (mostly) and zero or a handful or books are joining thousands of groups. Some also have a link to a suspicious website in their profile. If you block a member from the group, also flag them and report them to GR Support via email with links to their profiles.

The link doesn't work. But this is concerning. This is why whenever someone sends a friend request I check out their page to see when they joined and how many books they've read.

what exactly do they do?

Because I think the Randoms have joined one of my groups... a lot of them

I guess they removed the link. So far, they haven't done anything besides join a suspicious amount of groups.

oh, why the hell would they come to this site? like it isn't that well known...

Slytherpuff wrote: "I guess they removed the link. So far, they haven't done anything besides join a suspicious amount of groups."

then why is it so concerning? I mean they haven't done anything yet

I basically never accept friend requests myself, but if I do I check out their profile to see if we actually have anything in common in the first place. Of course it's fine if you do, just be careful.
Also, because there are scammers around I don't share information such as where I live, how old I am, or my whole name. Example: thousands of people have the name Anna but you won't know my last name. I just think it's safer in case a scammer somehow gets a hold of your profile and starts creepily doing who knows what.

*shrugs*

Several groups I'm in have become private because of these problems.

I probably should make my group private and delete those members.

றϓқі૯ wrote: "Lone.Star wrote: "Slytherpuff wrote: "I guess they removed the link. So far, they haven't done anything besides join a suspicious amount of groups."

then why is it so concerning? I mean they haven..."

ah, good point? so what are we gonna do about the randoms? (besides blocking and reporting them)
like is there anything we CAN do?

I am scared

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Try adding the link to your webpage, it still works for me but when I click the link on the first comment it doesn't work

I think I friended a suspect account - thought it was just a new member. They only had 2 books shelved and no profile pic. I unfriended them a couple of days ago when I started hearing about this. Am I still at any risk?

Lone.star try going through members profile and removing them
Also for extra precaution, change your group membership to instead requesting to join and only the mods can accept them or not
That way you can check their profiles for any suspicious behaviour

Good idea

Cendaquenta, if you're unsure about it, copy their profiles link and email it to GR security, let them know that you're unsure but you wanted to let them know just in case.
There's nothing wrong in them checking them out

Abbie wrote: "The link doesn't work. But this is concerning. This is why whenever someone sends a friend request I check out their page to see when they joined and how many books they've read."

I do this, plus I check to see if they are in any of the same groups as I am. If not, I check books in common--if they are not in any of my groups, have few if any books in common, and their reading interests are very different than mine, I don't friend them even if they didn't just join. I don't mind if my reading friends have NO books in common with me if we are in a group together and I am at least familiar with them.

I think I set up my account to require people to message me with a reason why they want to be my friends--which FB would do the same!

Once I went through and removed followers whom I didn't know, so now I'll do that again.

I had to delete countless unusual members in my group.

Ok I'm having a dumb moment but what exactly is the issue with these members joining groups and adding us as friends?

I've gone through two so far, then had a notice of these last two posts. I have deleted one and kept one based on my rules, and am going to finish.

FYI I am happy to have friends, just no creepy followers who I have NOTHING in common with!!!

Rachel wrote: "Ok I'm having a dumb moment but what exactly is the issue with these members joining groups and adding us as friends?"

There is nothing wrong with people joining groups or being friends most of the time, but some people are just odd looking.

If someone has JUST joined GR and joins a group I prefer that they have been on a while before friending me and have actually participated, unless I already know them from my time on Shelfari, IRL, etc.

றϓқі૯ wrote: "

they are most likely phishers looking for personal information"

Thanks--you put it much better!

I don't understand why they can't leave us alone. Don't they have better things to do.

Karin wrote: "Rachel wrote: "Ok I'm having a dumb moment but what exactly is the issue with these members joining groups and adding us as friends?"

There is nothing wrong with people joining groups or being fri..."

Ahh ok thank you.

றϓқі૯ wrote: "Rachel wrote: "Ok I'm having a dumb moment but what exactly is the issue with these members joining groups and adding us as friends?"

they are most likely phishers looking for personal information"

Thanks for that. Something I'll keep en eye out for.

This is why I use only my first name and never use my real face for my profile and also why I rarely friend people without profile pictures and set up a challenge question.

It's funny that there would be phishers on here, like this is one of the worst possible sites to get useful information, we're just talking about books.

Frank wrote: "This is why I use only my first name and never use my real face for my profile and also why I rarely friend people without profile pictures and set up a challenge question.

It's funny that there w..."

Right--I don't put my last name or age anywhere on here, BUT you know some of that kind of comes up in posts (not my last name, but my general age range) in groups I've been in for years. It's easy to forget what followers and friends can see.

I'm bored and tired about this.

Frank wrote: "This is why I use only my first name and never use my real face for my profile and also why I rarely friend people without profile pictures and set up a challenge question.

It's funny that there w..."

Yeah! That's what I do!

I had to go through every group I own and moderate and had to get rid of suspicious people

That is a good idea, Rumell.
I don't think we need to take any extreme measures, but warn anyone you see not to click on suspicious links like those ones.

I noticed a pattern there are some spammers who are reading the same type books about pharmacies.

about.. pharmacies..
Okay then.

றϓқі૯ wrote: "Rumell wrote: "I noticed a pattern there are some spammers who are reading the same type books about pharmacies."

and weight loss"

and medical. So I assume it is in the health category.

Okay. Sounds strange...
I'm sure the head admins will sort out the issue in no time. We can all calm down...

We can't calm down.

I just removed 4 from our group, I didn't find any more. They are pretty easy to spot and deal with. They haven't caused much harm to the group itself, just joined.

Scammers will do anything if they think they can come. Somebody

*con somebody

Heather wrote: "Scammers will do anything if they think they can come. Somebody"

Exactly. They don't just join and do nothing. They join for a reason. E.g. hacking. And they aren't just human members. They are bots.

Are they going to hurt us in some way?

They could steal or hack into your account, I would think. Either way it creeps me out!

Here is a list of history of discussion centring spams accounts.

https://www.goodreads.com/group/comme...

Isn't it odd that this has been happening in Goodreads and not in websites such as Personality Cafe, 16Personalities, Facebook and Buzzfeed. I mostly get these bad news from this website. How secure do you think this place is?

BookWorm wrote: "Are they going to hurt us in some way?"

The last time we had this type of influx, some members had their accounts hacked in order to allow the spammers to spam with their accounts.

The majority of the spammers seem intent on pushing spam into groups since GR staff does not moderate the majority of groups. You can see it if you log out and look at the "discussions" page, you will see pages and pages and pages of spam. I stopped at page 6. Not sure how much more there is.

Either way, unless you want any personal details (books, email, etc) you have here going to spammers, lock your account down.

Now, I'm off to go kickban more spammers.

Rumell wrote: "How secure do you think this place is?"

HAHA

Not secure.

We've had some spam threads in the group, but I've deleted them as soon as I saw them and blocked the spammer from re-joining. The number of members who join PFOS each week is high, and I do forget to check the new ones sometimes.

Well this is not good at all

Just done a look thought my friends and unfriended a few that had no books and to many friends, never seen anyone with suspicious links in their profile. I try to be careful and read there profile and usually don't add anyone with just a link or a few random sentences.

I've received friend requests from suspicious accounts before. Some of them had no books on their shelves and thousands of friends and had links in their bio which looked like porn sites. Also been messaged by similar people.
When I first joined Goodreads years ago, someone messaged me, I was like "Hello to you too. What are you reading?"
They said that they're stranded somewhere and can't visit their family. So, they started asking for money.
:/