garbage new accounts and spam messages ?

[jmelson]

In the last couple weeks, I've been getting a lot of garbage new accounts and spam messages through the web store. The accounts have clearly garbage first and last names, stuff like "StaolgaKep" and addresses like "1234 elm street" and then a country like Armenia, where such an English address would not be likely.
Anybody else getting these?

The spam messages are now like 40+ a day, and either total unicode gibberish or having something to do with porn. I thought osCmax had a setting to only allow email from logged-in accounts, but I can't find it. I'm pretty sure these messages are not coming from a logged-in account, just using the send message script.

Any suggestions on what to do? Right now I look at new accounts and delete the obvious junk ones, just to keep my account list manageable.

Jon

[ridexbuilder]

Yep, some of my clients are getting the same thing - what a pain!
If it's not bogus new accounts, then it's spamming the Contact Us. I wish they'd get a life!
I've coded a small addition of capturing the IP address (to the database) on the Create Account page, for one client. This appears to have reduced the problem, to some extent. I could do the same for the Contact Us page.
A better method might be to fix up the reCaptcha but I haven't looked into what's required.

I do wish Michael_S had time to get more involved. There's still plenty of life left in this package, if updated.

[JRR]

The problem is the obsolete registration user verification engine Recaptcha - it was shut down by Google a year or so ago and no one has taken the time to update it in osCmax. I commented on it here...

[ridexbuilder]

Yup. The Boss appears to have gone AWOL again.
Have you looked at the development site? Any bugs reported about it?

[JRR]

No, haven't taken the time. Other than Recaptcha Max is working fine - for now.
I am having a young software kid make us a simplified CSV parts adding engine. Will work for Max, and may well work for others. We have 10,000 more parts to put up and it was taking far too long and required too much knowledge so making it a more automatic process should speed the process up (I hope).
Then I will ask him if he can fix the Recaptcha issue.

[ridexbuilder]

..
I am having a young software kid make us a simplified CSV parts adding engine. Will work for Max, and may well work for others. We have 10,000 more parts to put up and it was taking far too long and required too much knowledge so making it a more automatic process should speed the process up (I hope).
...

That's where EasyPopulate comes into its' own.

[JRR]

Easypopulate can also break the system if the person using it isn't knowledgeable. My goal was to make this for people who are computer illiterate. Simpler than the now free osCommerce Store Management product editor (too many bells and whistles for the average user - easy to break the system).