The spammer (or bot) copy/pastes an opening post from a Reddit thread. It's left for replies. Then a few days later the spammer (or bot) returns and quitely adds a spam link in their opening post - Dubai escorts and keto gummies seems to be favourite spam threads at the moment..

Normal forum software (such as Xenforo, which I use) has loads of automated anti-spam options that can prevent bots registering and stop them posting links - without banning normal active members by accident, like the current one does! 

If Plarium really want to use their own bespoke software they need to look at existing platforms to see how they deal with spam and emulate them, because at the moment the software Plarium is using isn't really fit for purpose when it comes to spam.  

Oh! now i understand. TYVM

Y'know, I wasn;t *planning* on going to India and getting a call girl, but seeing 50 "different" "people" all give the same endorsement, with the same wording even, all in span on a single minute really turned me around on that. I don;t see how I could afford NOT to. :D

It's not about the 10000 that don't click though, it's about the one person that does.  For whatever reason they do.

Yup. they wouldn't do it if they didn't make money off of it

I still don't get it, but I still don't click it.

It's to spam advertisement in a convoluted way to get around chat filters, which really isn't necessary here, but other forums have significantly better spambot filters

The forum is filling up  now with call girl spam.  I dont understand how Raid software can miss that but ban innocent forum users.  

Couldn't tell you.  I know nothing about the bot itself other than it catches alot.  We just do our best to keep the stuff it misses deleted.

I just checked something out of curiosity:

In a country where dressing immodestly can get a woman years in prison, if she isn't killed first, advertising "adult" services is punishable by a fine of $300k USD, *per instance*

FWIW - this is a topic that's been researched quite a lot, but from last I read, the tl;dr is: make clickbait/spampost/phishing/etc *deliberately* obvious. Add all sorts of typos, grammatical errors, etc.

Seems pretty silly right? Any reasonable person will obviously see through the veil and ignore the link?

Perfect. That's the intended goal. Don't waste your time trying to catch someone who "gets it". Why waste time trying to scam someone who understands how the internet works? Filter them all out, so the only people who you actually have to spend effort on, are the ones who will fall for your traps.

One place you can look at to see what they do is in the Feedback and Suggestions section of the forums. Currently on the main screen there is 1 "suggestion" and 1 notice. The "Artifact unequip suggestion" post from 2021 has a lot of weird links in it that the person edited in later. 

I *REALLY* despise scammers, and I very much wish there was much better international cooperation to arrest and charge them.

That said, if someone honestly believes the IRS has the FBI enroute to arrest you unless you get them an itunes giftcard, *especially* if you aren't in America in the first place, you kinda deserved it

For the very first tme one of these was useful to me:

There's one right now for a brand of joint pain/swelling treatment, or so it claims anyway, i didn;t click it. But this is a product i might actually be interested in. Now, thanks to spam bots I know for certain to never, ever, get that brand!

Could we also interest you in some drug infused gummies, male enhancement pills or perhaps the company of a young lady from an ethnical diverse selection? 

You know, if I *was* in the market for some weed gummies or a saudi hooker, i would STILL specifically avoid any "business" that advertizes by bot spamming forums

Lol, good man.  Make sure you use reputable sources for the purchases.