I cannot help feel that sending private messages without posting is an abuse of the system here... but I usually just direct such folk to post their problem. They usually do so quite happily. I can live with this.

When the post is an ad rather than a problem, that feels like a bigger abuse... where there are multiple posts of the same ad from the same person...

I see this is increasing recently - i.e.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=574916

In my case, 1234redhat has spammed me with with the following:
... followed by a website.
[edit: url removed]

This seems to be a blog page offering resources to study for red hat certification, and offering a (suspect) "money back" guarantee you'll pass. (JIC: there is no such thing as a guaranteed pass in any fair exam. It's like a guaranteed return on investment.)

I've only had two of them so far and they are not as bad as that Nigeria-scam post in the link, nor as annoying as MS banner ads. It is still so not what I signed up for.

When someone abuses the rules in a forum post - multi-posting, trolling, etc. there is a simple option to report the thread. This has been effective. I have been looking for an option to report private message abuse.

Of course, I could always just remove my private e-mail from my profile. If this gets too common, I will have to do that. At least my actual address isn't being given out.

For now, I'll just add the user to my blacklist.

I've been a member here for just too long to count - and this is the first spam I've received this way. I think that is an amazing achievement, congratulations.

We're taking action on this now. Unfortunately, beyond not allowing email or PMs, we're stuck in a reactive position. What I will say is that we deal with this sort of thing very quickly.

Just to expand on what Ray said... This kind of thing is wholly unacceptable to us. We do have measures in place to help prevent it, but unfortunately some items do slip through. This member was banned extremely quickly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. BTW, you may want to edit your post to remove the URL - no use in helping a spammer.

--jeremy

Is there a "proper" way to draw attention to this sort of thing in the future? My post was prompted more from not finding one.No worries That was very fast btw.So done.

In cases like this you can always feel free to contact myself or an appropriate mod directly.

--jeremy