Scammers and Spammers

The Spam Control Team deals with members who violate Freecycle’s Terms of Service in ways that cannot be managed by local moderators.

Spammers massively post or respond to posts with content that is unrelated to Freecycle. Spammers usually operate across geographies, rather than in one locale. Spammers attack Freecycle groups in the following ways:

• Posting spam to the group
• Spoofing another member
• Harvesting member addresses
• Posting seemingly innocuous messages that require going to a third-party website
  

Scammers seek to use Freecycle’s website to defraud members, usually by asking payment upfront for delivery/courier fees or postage, and then not providing the promised item.

Here are some examples of the type of posts that are most often associated with scammers:

• An Offer with several of the same item for collection
• Small personal gaming/computer devices, like PS3, PSP, tablets, laptops
• Unusual use of punctuation and spacing in the subject line. (example: i p a d s.'-. or ..PSP' ')
• High-value items offered to multiple groups (click here to see how to search posts on other groups)

What to do if you find a suspicious post:

• Put the post into moderation by editing the post and unclicking Approve
• Temporarily put the member on moderation
• Report the post to Spamcontrol@freecycle.org. In your report, include:

1. Member’s username
2. Member’s email
3. Post ID number
4. Your group ID (name and number, please), which is found on your group's Info and Options page.
5. any screen captured images that you have (optional)

If you receive reports from members that you have NOT yet reported, please:

1. Ask the member to forward the entire email exchange between them and the suspected scammer to you and include it in your report to spamcontrol@freecycle.org. The email headers would also be very helpful if your member can provide them.
2. Reassure the members that Spam Control are investigating and may contact them for additional information.

Important: Please avoid stating, accusing, or implying that the reported person is a scammer. Use terms and phrases such as "this is a suspected violation of our Terms of Service” or "this post may be in violation of our Terms of Service." Also please do not engage with the suspicious member or try to conduct your own investigation. The Spam Control team has the necessary tools for investigating suspicious members and the sooner you report them to the team the sooner they will be dealt with.

If Spam Control determines that a post violate the Terms of Service, a notification email is sent to the members who have had contact with the poster, warning them that they may have had contact with a user that might be trying to solicit payment from them. For privacy reasons, Spam Control team members will not confirm or discuss if a suspicious user was removed, but they will let you know if something is NOT Spam or a Scam and can be placed back into active status.

Click here for a sample notice you can use to warn your members about such scams.