i wanted to write a quick blog about this because its been happening to me alot recently and it’s driving me up the wall.
lately almost every day around the same time, i am getting spammed by bots sending links promising “free lindens”. these links are disguised with a “notlong.com” address.. which is kinda like tiny url but makes it look like the address is a subdomain of notlong.com. when you click on it, and yes i clicked on it which is probably not advisable but i wanted to see what it was… it will take you to h**p://cutiebutt.com/rot (broke the link so it doesn’t send any traffic from my site) first off, this site has stolen LL’s header image and photoshopped FREE $L! on it. there’s also some photos of second life people flying and those are probably stolen from someone i’m sure…
click for the fullsized image
now, to some people just starting out on sl, who don’t know much about scam sites or phishing… they would probably put their name in that box and i have a good feeling that when you do that, it takes your uuid, which means it can do any number of crappy things to you, including more spam!
the avatars that are spamming me seem like bots, i always check their profiles and they always come out empty. which of course is the tell tale sign of a bot.
[2:14] Mersand Kostenbaum: ATTENTION GRID CITIZEN: I am the banker. I am the wealthiest
citizen in Second Life and I am giving away millions of dollars in Lindens. Goto
*******.com to claim up to L$25,000. That is all.
[11:04] Waite Goldlust: heya, would you like some free lindens? we can give you some
just check out ******.com you can earn up to $l5000 right now
those are the two that i got. the first one i was in world when it spammed me so that one is in my chatlogs somewhere. the second and third were sent while i was offline.
it reminds me alot of gaiaonline where people send you to scam sites claiming that they can get you tons of gold but you just have to give them your name and password. which of course would result in the takeover of your account.
aparently this is a widespread epidemic. massively.com wrote about it recently as well.
so if you are getting spammed by these people. first of all make sure NOT to do anything on the site. do not put your name in that box. secondly, make sure to report the spammers the moment they contact you. fill out an AR and a support ticket if you can.
as with any game, you must always remember, no one is every going to send you money for free (at least large sums anyway). there is always a catch.