Possible Fake Users?

How do you handle users who you suspect may be a troll/fake, but don't have enough evidence?
I had a user sign up a week and a bit ago, and while her email address was suss, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, but I still feel a bit edgy that there is possibly a fake on my forum.
It just got me thinking how others handle these situations?

 

You can run it through an mx server lookup to validate the server. Though your best bet would be to run it again a list of know spam address'. All else do a search with that address on google or webcrawler.

I know my email address goes straight into the spam folder on everyone I kwow.

 

Hmm I dont think she is a 'spam' user, more a troll. Her email address is legit, but there is a possibility that it doesnt fit with who she says she is.

 

Then I would just keep an eye on her. Until something comes to light. If you have the ability you can trace her steps and see what areas of the most interest to her. It will give a kinda feel of what she's looking for.

Once you identify why she's there you can either take action or lay your mind to rest.

 

My personal opinion is that it's not fair to take any punitive action against him/her until they do something that warrants it. Punishing somebody just because their e-mail address looks funny is not something I'd ever do.

So as June said, I'd just keep an eye on her until something goes on.

 

i had that problem. from this members first post, i thought that i had seen her before, the style of posting reminded me of someone who left the forum a while ago. she kept slipping up on things...having a child, and changing his name and age, saying she was from london, yet her ip said she was somewhere further up north...

eventually she confessed to us, who she really was

 

AE Multiple Account Detection (from the org) might come in usefull. Perhaps it's an existing member that's just being a bit dodgy?

I'm with the above though, if you monitor all members in such a way you must have too much time on your hands. We generally just wait until something out of hand goes on and then deal with it.

We do have a 'watch list' though which we add members to and remove them if they turn out to be sound. Though they're usually members that have bene on the forum for a bit and perhaps have started to swear a lot. Though we don't always follow them around the forum per say, we just use it to track repeat offenders and suchlike.

 

If it's any one, I'd say its a member from another forum, as a spy.
The reason I say her email is dodgy is that it's a teachers email address (and there is a slight chance students may get one of these emails too, but I can't seem to find confirmation on that) but the member is claiming to be a 14yo.
I don't agree that if I have no real evidence to go by then its not fair to ban her etc, and if everything is legit then she needs the support and I want to provide that for her.

I just wasn't sure how others treated these things, like possibly moving the person into a special user group or something?

 

try putting the suspect email address into facebook and ebay and you might just find them using it there with a bit more self detail.

 

Tracking those turkeys down can almost be a full time job sometimes. I know with myself I try to mimic the way the justice system is "suppose" to work. 10 guilty can roam free before 1 innocent person is sent to jail....essentially "innocent until proven guilty". My site was hit hard once with with spam and trolls etc and I swung the hammer. Moderating members, critiquing new registers, blah blah. I caused a whole world of hurt for myself. My opinion is if you are concerned about it, then by all means keep an eye it, but give the situation some rope.

 

I agree, just only give enough rope to let them hang themselves.