Wow, I guess this means we're popular!

C'mon, site spammers and purveyors of fine viruses, at least spell "cities" correctly. For that matter, the store chain is "Sainsbury's." Take some pride in your work.

for that matter, realise that we don't use bbcodes on this forum...

So, DDoS anyone? : )

can we see any simple human navigable way of blocking these spam bots?

i googled this guys email and found one other places where he advertises sainbury's jobs... it's odd, almost looks like a real person.

Anyone else tempted to turn this thread into a debate on whether stealing from supermarkets is justifiable?

@orathaic

I can't think of anything that wouldn't be infuriating to regular users.

@Oct

I don't think stealing form a supermarket is justifiable, unless you count "trying" a grape or something to make sure it's good.

@Abge - we don't have to signup for new accounts, but if someone has taken a record of the info required for the signup form, i might suggest that we change the form (some simple renaming of variables and changing the order of the input should do it)

However, if I lived near one of these supermarkets and found myself with some time on my hands, I would go in an make an enormous spectacle because of this spam.

@orathaic

But I very much doubt this is a bot. It looks like a real person, so I don't see how that would help.

Is the website official or does it just give you some kind of virus/malware?

@abge: a person who didn't know that we don't use bbcodes? the [url=...] is clearly an automated addition.
whether that means a human copy & pasted the message or it is a bot is unclear

Neither as far as I can tell.

The real Sainsbury's seems to be very legit. You can find them on Google/Wikipedia.
The website in the OP is a hack-job, but doesn't seem to have any malware.

I have stolen from a supermarket, but only because they had overcharged me for something the time before and bloody mindedly refused to do anything about it. Not a major theft, I should say, but just enough to regain what I'd lost. Not a penny more, not a penny less.

(yes, I am that petty)

@talisker: it appears to be a fake site setup to earn money from the google ads.

@orathaic

i claim he isn't a bot for the following reasons:

1) Many people don't know we don't support bbcodes. That is indicative of nothing either way.
2) This is not a standard forum, so a bot might have trouble navigating it.
3) He filled out his profile page.

@Oct

Honestly, I have no problem with this sort of vigilantism, especially if you tried to solve the problem properly and they refused to help you.

@abge: not being a does not prove he isn't automating as much as possible, it is clearly a scam, and from what i can find he has also hit: http://gamers.eurogamer.net/ with several threads...

Oh, it is most certainly a scam.

But, back to your original point. I don't see how you could prevent this once a user has joined. And, besides a captcha (do we even have one?) rearranging the sign-up page seems like more trouble than it's worth, especially since this is maybe the 3rd incident in 3 years.

@Oct: That is some very precise eye-for-an-eye vigilantism, and a great story. Did you adjust for sales tax? I think such steps are not a good idea because they lower the actor. I certainly grant, though, that it is hard to get reciprocity of relationship with a giant corporate conglomerate that just will not listen or rectify wrongs.

@orathaic

Thanks!

:O Can we have powers to remove threads now? :P

And forever erase this ethical debate about grocery vigilantism?

The phrase "grocery vigilantism" is great. Sounds like a theme for a character from "The Tick" who throws knockwurst and grapefruits at evildoers.

hahahah

@ Ges: What is this sales tax of which you speak? Is it one of those quaint American customs designed to make buying things (and indeed grocery vigilantism) unnecessarily complicated? In the UK it is traditional to put the price of the item (includind tax) on a little label next to said item.

The USA does not have VAT. States and local municipalities raise a fair amount of their revenue from sales taxes, which generally are not included in the sticker price. Sales tax is the American way of telling little Johnny that he actually cannot buy that $1 candy bar with his pocket money since it really costs $1.08. (It is also the American way of relying on regressive consumption taxes that sock the poor unduly while repeatedly cutting inheritance and capital gains taxes, but that's a story for another rambling thread.)

My understanding is that there is a captcha now. I don't remember one from when I signed up quite awhile back, but I have heard it mentioned as a common issue to work through when setting up a new webdip server.

I suppose it would be easy enough to check by starting to setup a new account, but not going through with it so as to avoid being banned for being a multi-accounter. But then I'd have to actually log out.

my understanding is that captchas are a way of training Spam bots to improve their image processing...

see: http://xkcd.com/810/