Bust a Spammer In The Grill

Heres a good post from Craigslist that a friend of mine made some time ago. The success rate to this method is not 100%, but it will work a good amount of the time. This is written with the average end internet user in mind, but if you read past the part about how to identify spam it gets into the good stuff.

"I have not been on here a for awhile, and I am amazed to see how much spam is flooding this section.

Just quick heads up for those that don't know:

If a posting takes you to a link that has no where to click except for on advertisements then it is spam!

For example this site,
http://www.lowincomebostonapartments.com/portland.htm
which was posted earlier today on portland craigslist IS SPAM!!
There are no apartments at all for rent, what they are trying to do is trick you into clicking on the google advertisement, which intern earns them money for each click you make. Also, try swapping the the /portland.htm to any major city for example, /denver.htm and look what happens! These people are making good money off abusing CL!!

(white hat method)
CL is a great service, and the best way to keep it that way and stop greedy spammers (who are to lazy to make a decent living) is being informed about what you are clicking on, AND recognizing and flagging these posts as SPAM.

(black hat method)
Now, if you are like me, and you dont have any problems fighting fire with fire, there is another way to cripple these spammers and render their scam useless. Now, a little heads up. IF you choose to undertake this, I warn you now that this is may or may not be legal, and it IS NOT the most up and up way to stop this particular kind of spam. Also if you get in trouble, dont blame me because you are on you own with this!!!

Now on to the good stuff:
According to wiki, Click fraud is defined as the following,

"Click fraud occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad's link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud whether they like it or not."

So, what you do it take about five minutes of your day, and click on the SAME ad as over and over and over again on one of these sites (make SURE it IS a spamming site) and then just wait. It may take some time, upwards of a day for anything to happen, so be patient.;
Now, what happens is that this sets off red flags with the google people, and the person who owns that account (spammer) will have there google ad sense account frozen. Now for the good part, all the money that they have made and not been paid for up until this point, (which could be a whole lot) will be frozen as well. These ad sense accounts are bound to and confirmed by social security # and other things that are not easily scammed. So, although they may be able to setup another account and get back at it, it will not be easy and it will probably take time. "