[Closed] Tricky scam email issue

Put a block on those sources?

I would block those sources.  they will create more but eventually will get bored of it.

Junk filter the porn.

do they not take deposits on block bookings?

With regard to the bookings could they reply to the e-mails and ask for a phone number to call back on to confirm the booking.  No number, no booking.

Tried junking them (marking them as junk) but then another flurry from other email addresses come through, so a new set..

Only things you can do are the basics really:

Don't accept bookings from those email addresses.

Any large bookings must have a sizeable deposit at the time of booking.  Have a small bit of text explaining why as a small business they are having issues with no-shows on large bookings, genuine customers will be fine with it.

Set up email to automatically filter the pron emails.

Other than that you can only really wait it out until they get bored.  Without concrete evidence you just have to sit it out longer than they can.

EDIT: looks like we all have the same idea.

Bombers, obviously. What the heck is wrong with you people?

Is it worth reporting to the police ? I don’t know what they can to do, but do know online bullying is a crime.. just thinking out loud.

My option was a little more extreme and would definitely have got my friends in proper trouble, all that rubble had to go some where ...

Eventually they will get bored of it. There are various filtering services which will get rid of obvious keywords.

They may already have stopped. Clicking unsubscribe on porn/spam is pretty much the worst thing you can do!

The block booking thing is different. If that is happening via a booking service on the website, presumably the hosting company can find out if a particular ISP address is the source (Obviously they could have done it incognito, but might be thick enough not to realise and think that creating fresh email addys is enough). If they are just doing it via email, some kind of verifiable contact will have to be taken.

I'd be tempted to report to police and get a crime number, just to put down a marker. I think it's covered by the Malicious Communications Act.

👍

How about changing the business email address, then removing any reference of this from the website.

Then only allow messages to be sent via a "contact us" form on the website.

They'll get bored of filling out the form every time and you could capture the details of the person completing it.

I suggest your mate either writes to or visits the neighbour(s) to clearly and politely explain that the unwanted emails & spoof bookings started immediately after the court case was booted out and state this, of course, 'could' be coincidence. Then state this is harassment - what has been described fits the legal definition perfectly - and the next step is to involve the police with the objective of identifying those responsible and seeking a prosecution.

Don’t accept bookings from those email addresses.

Assuming you have a list of the addresses from which you know any bookings will be fake I'd continue to appear to accept the reservations. Otherwise they'll switch to new emails. No effort to unreserve bookings from the list of familiar email addresses.

Any large bookings must have a sizeable deposit at the time of booking.

if youre not happy with that, then even a 'contact number must be given and we will ring you back to confirm your booking' would help.  at least then theres a number that should be traceable by police.....

personally i wouldnt be contacting the 'perpetrators' itd let them know theyre being successful.  id do all i can behind the scenes, good spam filter with my email account, report to police, 'ring back to confirm booking', and just play it 'softly softly, look how happy and successful we are, no problems here' to the outside world and a cheery wave to them whenever you see them out and about.

I'd report it to the Police, they shouldnt be having to deal with that kind of abuse.

If you know the perpetrator's address, add them to some very dubious mailing lists.  Fight porn with porn.

I think the porn might be a red herring - any publicly advertised email address is going to attract spam from all quarters. Being targeted and harassed from one quarter can just make it feel like any random unfortunate event is part of that harassment. Good spam filtering should be be able to catch most of that.

With the ghost bookings - I'd investigate the options for a web-based booking system. I doubt any customer expects other than to register with their details and payment info when booking a room these days. An email address shouldn't be for anything other than enquiries - booking means paying - or at least committing to pay. Even if you do continue to accept bookings over email you should be instifgating some sort of identifying financial transaction at the outset to consider the room/date booked and taking it off the market - and not waiting til nobody turns up.

It may well be that your pal is being deliberately targeted. It may well be that by doing nothing to secure a booking all sorts of genuine customers are just being given ample time to change their mind or shop around for other deals because they're not being held in any way to the booking they've made.

They need to take a credit card number for confirmation or await a deposit.     All reputable agent sites do that anyway.

Wait until the dodgy Tripadvisor reviews begin....

It's "take umbrage" by the way!

Fill the neighbor's telephone junction box with salt water and see if it stops.

They need to get a better website. They need to start charging on bookings. They need to take contact details.

They are making it too easy. Sounds like they are trying to make them bankrupt to get rid of them.

Do the upgrades and then if it continues they need to go to the police. Chances are they have not hidden their tracks very well but you would need to convince the police to investigate properly which may be difficult due to resources and they will just say it a neighbour dispute and they need to sort it themselves.

It might be worth just inviting them to an open day and try and get them to see the benefits of what they have done and bring them on board. If they are really going to these lengths the chances are you won't change their minds. Also, it might not be them.

Have they/you looked at the extended headers on the emails to identify the IP address from where they were sent? If not then google it or I can give advice. If it shows that they are from the same source then you might be able to narrow down the field?

Or if they've got other emails they've been sent from the source then compare this header with the 'new' ones.

They need to get a better website. They need to start charging on bookings. They need to take contact details.

As above, only bookings via website or phone should be accepted, enquiries only via email. This is pretty much SOP in holiday accommodation AFAIK.

Assuming you can get the IP addresses from the headers, it's also worth looking them up on https://www.spamhaus.org/ - if they are ordinary spammers, they will have been reported by others. If they are targeted, they won't be. Unless you can establish that the emails are are targeted at them, not random spam like everybody gets, the police won't be interested.

Plenty of options for dealing with spam.

As for the bookings, no deposit, no reservation, simple really.

Yeah, pretty sure he knows who it is. But proving anything is tricky. That’s why I was trying to get underneath the email IP address originator route.. but that would only lead him down to a few anonymous servers is far off countries no doubt.

The booking site has been changed for a more robust one, after about a year of these ghost bookings. One that takes deposit up front or pre-auth cards, that has cut down the booking nonsense to a large degree, the owner has a website of his own that does have his email address on obviously and that is where all the porn stuff is going at the moment..

Thanks for the help chaps.

I will pass on all the info ^^

As has been said - they should be taking credit card numbers as part of confirming a booking (much easier to use an external booking provider site for this). If it's not a valid credit card then there's no booking.

I suggest your mate either writes to or visits the neighbour(s) to clearly and politely explain that the unwanted emails & spoof bookings started immediately after the court case was booted out and state this, of course, ‘could’ be coincidence. Then state this is harassment – what has been described fits the legal definition perfectly – and the next step is to involve the police with the objective of identifying those responsible and seeking a prosecution.

I wouldn't do this - you're just letting them know you're causing them grief (which is what they want, assuming it's them). If it's not them you're just making angry neighbours have a reason to be angry.

The police won't take any action, it's difficult/expensive enough investigating computer based crime, no chance they'll do it for a harassment case like this. It's not that the police don't care, it's just if they did properly investigate cases of online harassment they'd need about another trillion quid in their budget.