Spam message

We recently sent a bug report to SLS support because their message system was blocking all/most/many of the messages we tried to send others. Turns out that one secret rule is that you can't have a hyphen '-' in a message. If you try to send nothing happens, your text disappears and the message is not sent - no error message. We then complained to SLS support because we couldn't send notes to about 10 people near our weekend destination - SLS claims that is SPAM.

Thoughts? Should SLS fix the messaging feature? Is asking to locals to chat a SPAM?

SLS Response - "Your message is being sent. Although, you should not be sending a message like that over and over to multiple people, as that is spam.
Customer Service"

I handle this by using an impossibly difficult password, like "cockzilla1234".

whistles absently

"It could well be that the profiles sending the messages were broken into and had a very easy to guess password."

Rolls eyes,,, grins...

It could well be that the profiles sending the messages were broken into and had a very easy to guess password.

FYI... response to our support ticket:

We have taken care of the issue and are deleting those messages. Please change your password.
(SLS) 8/23/2020 12:06pm

Do i smell a successful hack? So maybe everyone should change their password!

KinkyBopit: Welcome to the forums.

You don’t need to see their profile to report spam, only a user name.

~Allen

"I did make a post about the spam problem, but apparently it frazzled someone at SLS and was removed...."

Not sure if this was the case, but they do have a filter that blocks certains words in forum posts. I think that 3 W's followed by a period is one of those combinations, but as I recall, it rejects it immediately when that happens and tells you the post contains words that are not allowed.

You can get around that by putting blank spaces in the URL, but if your post had the URL entered like that in this case, I can see why they'd want it removed. Also, if it mentioned a profile by name, that could be another reason....or, they just had a hair across their ass and deleted it ;--)

I got the spam messages...
And tried to report it... But I couldn't open the profile, because they selected single males could not read the profile. Great job SLS for prohibiting solo guys to report spam

No spam so far but several messages have disappeared from our inbox. They took away the email system which seemed to work reliably in favor of the "messages" tool which is kluge at best and often refuses to display any messages without a refresh or 3. :/

Tada! Got our second one earlier today.

It actually really irks me that SLS would do that. Rather than communicate what's going on to members they'd prefer to shut down discussion of it.

LALALALA I can't hear you

I did make a post about the spam problem, but apparently it frazzled someone at SLS and was removed....

Too funny, VA! We were feeling some kind of way also, then we received our first one about a half hour ago.

We feel left out. We've only gotten the first one.

Just got another one of these from a different profile -

"Hi sweet mayhem8!
thousands of Real people online & seeking for Sex . Have fun -
(removed link from post, but it's in a format that is normally blocked, at least as a forum post)
Regards"

@choose to answer your question, no we have not received any spam messages from your account, you are absolutely not blocked and we do appreciate you visiting our profile ;-)

"SLS really should send something out, at the minimum"

Historically, any and all discussion of potential security breaches on SLS have been ruthlessly scrubbed from the fora and denials made that such breaches existed.

I'm surprised this discussion hasn't been shut down yet.

We ended up receiving three "spams". Our first instinct was to block the profiles that sent them. It got us to thinking, how wide spread was/is this and how many profiles ended up being blocked because of it? We have have to imagine only a small percent of users read these forums or even know how to submit a support ticket. Did any originate from our profile? Have we now been unknowingly blocked by users as a result? You used to be able to see who blocked you in the old Friends (now Favorites) section, something we always thought was odd and were glad they changed but could be useful right now.

SLS really should send something out, at the minimum, acknowledging something happened (even if it was as simple as someone logged in to other profiles with easy to guess passwords) letting us now they are aware and will be be updating users soon. Unless, they truly do not care.

Yeah, we get that glitch every now and then. A page refresh or two usually corrects it.

~Allen

The messages have stopped but we do have 1389 new friend requests which must mean we’re very popular lol....

there was (still is) a website called 'swing village dot com' that primarily served the Midwest. It was an awesome platform from about 2003 through 2014 but the last six years have been a very slow death.

I see so many parallels between SLS and SV. The decaying infrastructure, the lack of customer service, the ambivalence of the staff, one person who shucks and jives more than a dodgeball player, and a decreasing membership that has people stick around because they are either 1) lifetime members or 2) new members who believe they have stumbled onto a good site for meeting others.

This site will still be around in 2025 but will have more cobwebs, more down time, more crickets, and more frustration for those who decide to continue to visit.

We just received a spam message as well from Newfor2020. We reported it. But I’ll be honest, we may truly be looking at the end of SLS. With the outdated coding of this site, few up to date tools to fight this new wave of spam and the lack of admin’s desire to bring this site up to current coding standards...well the spam is going to get worse and start driving away people in droves, even lifetime members. Or was the plan all along?

We've received 3 and reported each to admin. They're all now gone. Guess admin deleted them.

The only one we got was far, far away.

The 3 we have received (so far) have been relatively close to us too, within 50 miles.