Preventing banned users from subscribing with another accoun

[albertocv]

Hello, 

there is a person on my forum that uses several different accounts. The first one was banned but he keeps coming back with several different user names. 

How can I prevent this?

[opentype]

You can try to ban the IP. 

[David..]

2 hours ago, opentype said:

You can try to ban the IP. 

That never solves anything.

Infact, makes it harder to find his other account since he'll come back with a VPN.

[Simon Woods]

Other than having a separate account group, with having the default registered account be a "gateway" group of sorts, I'm not sure what else can be done here.

Also, once you get into having different groups it becomes easier to shape the community to reflect the different types of members you have.

[Faqole]

4 hours ago, albertocv said:

Hello, 

there is a person on my forum that uses several different accounts. The first one was banned but he keeps coming back with several different user names. 

How can I prevent this?

Have a look at my plugin. You can have some fun with him instead of banning him which does not seem to work.

 

[Vanrau]

You might take a look at the browser header they are using. If it's something that your users don't use, you can set up a deny in your .htaccess.

[David..]

None of the above methods will 100% work.

[Simon Woods]

1 hour ago, David.. said:

None of the above methods will 100% work.

Also, the sky appears to be blue.

[opentype]

10 hours ago, David.. said:

That never solves anything.

So you can speak for everyone now? 
In my niche, 98% of the members don’t even use VPNs. 
Banning the (current or permanent) IP of returning banned members can work. It’s a strong signal to the person to say “You are not wanted here anymore and your attempts to sneak in with different accounts won’t be tolerated. You will just be banned again and again and your effort won’t lead to anything.” The fact that this doesn’t work 100% of the time, doesn’t mean that its not an option at all. 

[Faqole]

6 hours ago, David.. said:

None of the above methods will 100% work.

Nothing ever works 100%. 

[David..]

6 hours ago, opentype said:

So you can speak for everyone now? 
In my niche, 98% of the members don’t even use VPNs. 
Banning the (current or permanent) IP of returning banned members can work. It’s a strong signal to the person to say “You are not wanted here anymore and your attempts to sneak in with different accounts won’t be tolerated. You will just be banned again and again and your effort won’t lead to anything.” The fact that this doesn’t work 100% of the time, doesn’t mean that its not an option at all. 

Sounds easy, right?

But what if the person you just banned keeps coming back, under a new account all the time? Am I supposed to keep banning every VPN he uses? Am I supposed to keep adding all his new accounts to the plugin mentioned above?

That won't work. The only way to somewhat fully ban a user is to disallow proxy registrations to your community and ban his IP. But even then, some people can get a new IP by simply restarting their router.

 

[opentype]

7 minutes ago, David.. said:

… disallow proxy registrations to your community and ban his IP.

Ban the IP? Why didn’t I think of that!

Oh, wait, that’s what I said twice and you argued AGAINST that as if my suggestion was pointless because it apparently “never solves anything”. Thanks for the discussion. That itself was completely pointless. 

[David..]

3 minutes ago, opentype said:

Ban the IP? Why didn’t I think of that!

Oh, wait, that’s what I said twice and you argued AGAINST that as if my suggestion was pointless because it apparently “never solves anything”. Thanks for the discussion. That itself was completely pointless. 

Don't ignore the proxy registration part. Banning the IP without disallowing proxy registrations is useless. At least for me.

[Hexsplosions]

I've had this problem many times in the past, but it can be solved.

Rule number one... Do not feed the troll.

In my experience these types of people feed on your reactions. That's why they keep coming back. I've seen previous moderators put public notes on accounts, change account names, reply to posts, edit the posts of returning banned users, reply to messages, reply to emails, etc., which are all a reaction to the individual. If you don't react to the person who is returning, they will soon get bored since they're getting nothing out of it. It'll take time but how long can they really keep it up if they're getting absolutely nothing out of it? It's much easier if you have a team of moderators so you can share the burden of placing the bans, but they must all know not to react in any personal way. Just ban the account and move on.

Rule number two... Report it to their ISP, with your server logs and screenshots of the abuse as evidence.

Nothing might come of this, ISPs vary in their responsiveness to issues, but I have reported users in the past and had some success with UK based ISPs. You have to show evidence of abuse originating from their customer before they will act. (server logs, screen shots, police reports, etc.)

[albertocv]

On 8/4/2017 at 2:39 PM, David.. said:

disallow proxy registrations

Thanks, what do you mean with the above phrase? Stating in the forum rules that noone should create an account on behalf of another person?

Thanks all. I think he has a dynamic IP, but I can try.

[gabs007]

This is not 100% effective, nothing is, but it has helped me in the past.

Create a secondary group where it shows pop up messages to ONLY that group every 2 or 3 or 4 pages  with this mod: https://invisionpower.com/files/file/7628-bim41-easy-popup/
You can write in the popup message something like  ......  

"This is an automatic message from the system, blah blah.  The system has detected some kind of misuse with the account and the user needs to verify. Please, apology us if this is a mistake blah blah"  

Keep that message for 20 seconds on the screen. After that redirect to the "contact page."  ( the system can do that every 2, 3 or 5 pages ) Give the abuser the opportunity to taste the website, but cut it when he browses the 4th page, for example. He could even post a message, but it is so so hard to achieve that goal, that it is better to disregard the account and move to the next one. 

When you detect an alt account, add it to the secondary group, again again and again . It only takes 10 seconds. If you can't make him behave, make his experience miserable. And the "funny" part is that it looks like it is something automatic created by the system. Do not close his accounts, do NOT contact him ...  don't do anything. Make the abuser think that it is something created by the software so contacting you will only reveal even more his identity. Besides, he will have the feeling his facing a wall, again and again. 

From his point of view, every account is worthless once detected. You can take a little time and keep adding his account to the "miserable" group. He will eventually get bored.

 

Adding to write about my experience with this:

I have used this resource or technique  twice during the last 6 months.
It's been helpful, because when I discovered the second alt account and I added them to the miserable group (all the accountS), the guys even contacted me saying, "what did I do wrong?" 
Then I replied with something like,  "thanks user, I have manually verified your information and you are this account, this account and this account. I have closed the 3 alt accounts and keep your first one. Please .... Keep in mind that the system might eventually detect you again if you register another one, and add you to the "spam" list again. Do not contact me again if this happens, I will close all your accounts and ignore your messages."

Problem solved.