Doubt there's been a day gone by without spam, and lots of it on the ebay forums.

Here's what the toolbar & sidebar forum looked like shortly after the forums came back online after the apparent 'database outage'

Real nice place ya go there, ebaY.

Keep up the good work!

Sat Aug 17 2013 13:47:03

eBay Spam and Etsy Hijacking Keep Sellers on Their Toes

By: Ina Steiner

eBay's new community section has been the recent victim of spamming, and its new platform service provider Lithium has been slow to respond to at least two cases we're aware of. And while readers are likely familiar with the problem of Account Takeovers on eBay, Etsy sellers aren't immune from such hijackings either.

 ^ (more at link, including screencaptures)

This is getting outrageous. The spammers have not missed a beat, and the members are being abused/mistreated. The About Me forum was spam-hammered last night/this morning.

Solicitation posting

Ebay programmers need to find a way to stop the sex solicitation in these boards ..It's preventing others from asking  valid questions.

 

...now skipping down to reply #4:

Try reporting them then you get slapped for doing so. Several of us were told last weekend that there is no issue with spammers by the mods.

 

 

Wow, just wow!

 

Is this the type of outfit you wish to enrich?

I hope everyone gives careful consideration to participation on the forums.

What happens when no one posts anything there, due to the situation?

 

A couple more tidbits from the sleazebay forums, where now they are piling on the abuse and mistreatment:

Need a Ho ?

Yep.

 I also took a vacation for saying Id start calling Trust and Safety to complain about the slow response from mods after several boards had been flooded for 14 hours straight.

 I used to run a large off ebay forum, there are ways of dealing with this, but I understand where Lith might not want to use a large scale IP number block ban. It would take out innocents who use numbers in that block, BUT its highly effective,and you can set the ban to expire in 24 hrs-30 days if you want.

 BTW folks, Lithium is hiring for mods lol

Here's a rather long running thread (started August 10, 2013) from the "New Community Experience" board:

spammers hit Buyer Central

You can see more shocking & disgusting examples there. Also, there were several screencaptures posted there to humor sleazebay"s obvious shills, quickly deleted, while the spam went unchecked.

Nudity and/or straight up porn in the spam posts has now been observed/reported btw.

Good ol' sleazebay! Living up to it's name!

Does it seem like this is ebaY's way of monetizing the forums?

What other explanation could there be?

 Too funny! The call girl or escort service ads on the ebaY community are running like there's no tomorrow.

Current sample from the ebay stores forum. There are lots more, some with nudity. lmao

It's also interesting to note that ebaY does not seem to be NARU'ing the bogus spambot accounts.

It should be fun to watch and see whether Donahoe or any others mention membership growth at the next Q report conference call. Not that anything else is to be expected.

Here's a little sample of the nudity being posted. There's been plenty more than that. Looks like the forums are all ate up this morning. wow just wow! rotflmao

Last time checked, there were call girl spam ads with obvious little teenage girls in the pictures within, being posted onto ebay forums. Won't post the screencaptures for obvious reasons.

Real nice place alright. Just think, ebay wants to be a social site. lmao & smdh

Is it obvious that ebay forums are being spam-monetized?

What a circus sleazebay has become, replete with snakes, pink elephants in the room, and several other appropriate and telling elements...

Keep up the good work sleazebay.

The ebay forums were struck by spam from Appliance Repair Centers in Viet Nam? with great zeal!

selected, translated snippets of the spam, phone numbers removed:

"ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING CENTER REFRIGERATION - POLYTECHNIC

SERVICE CENTRE PANASONIC WASHING MACHINE REPAIR PROFESSIONALS

HANOI , xxx.xxx.xxxxmobile : xxxx,xxx,xxx

POLYTECHNIC CENTRE IS PROUD MAINTENANCE REPAIR PANASONIC WASHING MACHINE TOP VN

HANOI most prestigious & the Northern provinces . CUSTOMERS ARE USING PRODUCTS

WASHER Panasonic brand malfunctioning PLEASE CONTACT

TO BE WITH OUR SERVICE , fastest , most technical WARRANTIES , MOST REASONABLE PRICE

PANASONIC WASHING MACHINE REPAIR SPECIALIST PROFESSIONAL :

* ABOVE ARE COMMON ERRORS PANASONIC WASHING MACHINE

* NOT IN POWER PLANT - PLANT NOT RUN - jump to error - CIRCUIT DISORDERS

NOT WASHING - no thing , objects that are appealed , NOT THE WATER - DO NOT DRAIN

WATER . WATER SPILL CLEANING MACHINE EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE INSPECTION MACHINE - safety

AIR SUPPLY GENUINE PARTS REPLACEMENT WARRANTY FREE LONG TERM

BUY & SELL REFRIGERATOR , WASHER , AIR-CONDITIONER , TELEVISION USED { or down }

EVERYONE NEEDS REPAIR , MAINTENANCE PLEASE CONTACT

REFRIGERATION ELECTRONICS CENTER POLYTECHNIC


Prestige, Quality is the motto of our service

THANK YOU HAVE CUSTOMERS USING OUR SERVICES



^   A curious departure from the apparent India based spammers, who have been filling the forums with call girls and escort service spam (mammalian protuberances and all. mmmm) for a few months now. Somehow, they seem to go together nonetheless.
(Insert your own FZ Joe's Garage Church of Appliantology joke here. lmao!)

  So not sure whether this reflects a cultural or an economic variance between the countries, or motivation to spam the forums, the individual's (or bot master) own sense of humour etc. It is as socially curious as it is comedic. Maybe Lithium and ebay finally did something smaaaat? hahaha.
 
Whatever it is, you can be sure that ebay is deriving profit, otherwise it woulde not be there. (example indicated: the tens, [if not hundreds] of thousands of recent Purge Victims, or Trolls who were costing everyone money, and were known for not paying their bills, as they've been described.) They're gone right? But the spam remains an everynight issue. Replete with the nudity, the overall tastelessness and tackyiness etc. Not one night has gone by without it.
 
Of course this is likely to spark some competition from their long time rivals, the Chinese. Why, you never know what could happen next? Let's just say it should be fun to watch as  spammers across the globe learn how easy it is to fill ebay forums full of gibberish!

(We hope no one upsets the fearsome Icelandic spammers.)

So spam away, Brave VietNam Appliance repair spammers! Ebay loves you! Especially our own beloved Ho!

LoL

Most of the spam from this person/bot/account was as replies to another thread rather than starting their own. It provoked some very amusing replies. The thread has since been sanitized.