About spam messages about duct cleaning

[Lee Bruch]

There have recently been lots of spam messages on many Google Groups re duct cleaning.

A Lake City group has sent out the email below.

Lee Bruch

     206-355-4282 Mobile & Text

     Lee....@outlook.com

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From: lakecity...@googlegroups.com <lakecity...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Muriel Lawty <m.g....@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 3, 2025 11:59 AM
Subject: WARNING, PLEASE READ

 

Hello Friends and Neighbors,

Recently several local community Google groups have had new members try to get people to join in on a scheme to share the cost of furnace duct work, or some other group savings scheme.  Because the messages are all so similar, even the requests to join, other Google group managers and I think this probably is an attempt to get personal information and hack accounts.  

So - be cautious about replying or joining in on any such scheme that has shown up in your group.  All the groups experiencing this I know about are about sharing ideas on how to improve our neighborhoods, community events, and things relevant to their focus - Not sharing ideas for financial gain.  

Regarding LCNA - I am now putting all new members on monitor so their communications can be reviewed before publishing to the group. I also have deleted a couple of new members from the group.  This has kept me busy, so if you ask me questions, please know that I may not have time to reply - I don't know anything not in this email.  HOWEVER - if anyone knows who is behind this, do let me know so I can pass it on to other Google group managers.

Finally - we do welcome new members to LCNA and look forward to meeting you soon.  We have been inactive for several months and hope to start meetings again in the fall.

Thank you all for caring for our Neighborhoods!!

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Muriel Lawty  community volunteer  she/her

206 328 5206

LCNA Steering member, TCA Board member
m.g....@gmail.com

real estate email: murie...@BHHSSigprop.com  

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[Justin Martin]

I think we just need to get new member requests more closely. Used to be the group moderators could require someone to answer a question as part of their request to join. Maybe we can turn that on? 

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[Lee Bruch]

See the comment from Ballard-Fremont Greenways below. I've turned on (1) and have been doing (3) to spammers after the fact for a year or more. Hopefully that will do trick but if needed, I can turn on (2)

Ballard-Fremont Greenways experienced the very same “duct cleaning” phishing exploit. Here’s how we addressed the problem:

1. Group settings>New member restrictions: Set to “New member posts are moderated.”
2. People>Members: The Posting option was manually set to “moderated” for all members added withing the past two months.
3. People>Ban users: Member accounts posting the phishing messages were banned.

 

So far, no malicious posts have been successful since we implemented all of these steps, and we have banned five recent members. The downside of this approach is that all posts from new or recent members must be first reviewed by an owner or group manager.

Lee Bruch

     206-355-4282 Mobile & Text

     Lee....@outlook.com

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From: greenwood-phi...@googlegroups.com <greenwood-phi...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Justin Martin <jm.j...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 3, 2025 6:14 PM
To: greenwood-phi...@googlegroups.com <greenwood-phi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [NW Greenways] About spam messages about duct cleaning

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenwood-phinney-greenways/CAP45yuQ3vOAG8NZMf7YrXYebYFuUBHNE3T-rRJTCFx9KAh2u5Q%40mail.gmail.com.