JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum MY SPACE bah hum bug!! I'm outta there!!

I signed online today to find out that I have been spammed yet a 3rd time on myspace!!! First I had someone sending out MACY'S CARDS saying what not and that they were from me and to buy something sexy or whatever. !#^*&!! Can you read my mind?!! Then this morning someone got on and mailed out a video of a girl in a bra, Lord knows what would happen if you clicked on it. THAT WAS THE LAST STRAW FOR ME!! I am outta there! I just cancelled my account, it should take less than 48 hours and it will be down. I am counting the minutes! I am so angry. Unless My Space makes a change with this issue I will never be a part of their site again. MY reputation means alot to me, and this was absolutley humiliating. Beware any of you who are a part of My Space. So my solution is to hire someone to continue building my music website. I have already been paying for the domain and for a host for a few years now.

If anyone is interesting in being hired to help me please email me at Nitesong34@msn.com. It is the best route to go anyway. Much more professional. I apologize to anyone who received anything from me that was offensive in nature. That wasn't me. I would never do that.

Thanks so much!
Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com

NO MY SPACE...until further notice (only if something changes within their company!)

Oh BTW!! My Space does one thing right! They closed my account in less than one hour!! How about that for service!! WOW!!

Tammy
Ya don't mess with a scorpio woman, I get the job done!!

www.Tammyedwards.com

I hope you let myspace know why you bailed out on them. I got your Macy's card. Keep us posted as to your progress with your site. I did see some issues on your website under the music button. A couple of lines are over written that you may want to correct. Its a great site...

Hey Rick, thanks! But its long gone after all the work. I cancelled it like 8 times today before I got it to work. I let them know how riduclous it was to get spammed that much. I will just have to work on my official website. It is very disheartening. Sorry about the Macy's card.

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

Third time? Oh, man.. I get on average 5-10 of those a day.

Are you serious? Sent out to your friends from your account Andrew?

Tammy

There's only two reasons this would happen - and while it's annoying, you're the one responsible for your page at myspace.

1. Turn off HTML comments. That's key to preventing it from occurring on your page.
2. Be careful what you click on, on someone else's myspace page. Chances are your password was phished because of something like that.

If your account is the one sending it, then it's 100% because your password was phished and a spammer is using your account to send it out. The only way to prevent that once it's happened is to clear your browser caches. Then log in to myspace and change your password. Then log out again, and clear you caches again.

Chances are you're using a Windows OS PC. This is a much more prevalent problem with Windows and PC's.

So, Tammy, that wasn't you leaving all those comments on my My Space page?

I deleted the Macy's card thing but liked the bikini video.

Hi Jody! Yes I have Windows. I think we did that a couple of times. I changed the password a couple of times and it kept happening. Then I gave up. Now I am not sure I ever want to try that again. Thanks for you great advice! I appreciate it!

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

OMGosh Iggy! No I did not leave any of that! That is exactly what I as afraid of. All these people thinking I left those things. I didn't even know where to begin contacting everyone so I felt it was best to bail completely and just junk the whole thing. I hope you didn't get a virus by clicking on that video. LOL maybe you want the virus! LOL

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

I came close to getting phished yesterday. I clicked on something on someone else's MySpace page and got what looked like the MySpace login page requesting my login info, but I knew I was already logged in, plus my computer normally makes the entries for me when I log in and this time it did not. If I had filled in the login info, I think it would have gone straight to the phisher. Then he would have had access to my page.

I just had a gal tell me that I shouldn't have logged in when the red bar appears above the log in area. It should be blue. Just a warning to those of you who may not know that. I think that is when they grab your password. I didn't realize that. She may have a point. A little FYI.

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

I closed mine ages ago.
Tried it. Didn't like it.
May work for some, but not me.
Graham

I always check, as well as I can, the viability of the persons/bands asking to be added and do not accept friends who are not musicians or in the music business. I've had a fair number asking to become a friend and I deny and delete. I also do not cruise myspace sites.
So far so good. I do normally run a Linux OS in lieu of Windows too, so.....

Tammy -- what a bummer... and we JUST became myspace friends! Sorry to hear of your troubles. I love myspace, visit and post everyday. Honestly, never have encountered a "phishing" scam but glad to be made aware through this thread. Also, I block html/have to approve all comments to my site so that prevents unwanted comments.

Hugs, Kim-Char

Graham I agree with you! Dak, I had mine set to where I had to clear everyone's comments Still had trouble. Thanks! And Kim-Char! I will still be your buddy and new friend through here and our websites!! We found each other!! :)Thanks!

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

My space ? Forget it, more like your space, and every one elses. Forget it and find a musical home.

cheers, niteshift

Ya, this is my home!

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

Hi Tammy,

Sorry to hear that you've had so much truoble with spamming.

I have two MySpace sites: www.myspace.com/imaginotion and www.myspace.com/australiansongwritersconference and I have both set to refuse html comments. I have never been spammed. Also, someone mentioned earlier about the login page, and they are quite right. If you try to login and a new login page comes up asking you to login again, close down the browser and start again. Its that 2nd login page where the phishing occurs. I learned a lot by buying Bob Baker's MySpace Marketing booklet when I first set up my Imaginotion Songs MySpace site and used it again when putting together the MySpace site for the Australian Songwriters Conference. It has been really helpful in assisting me to avoid many of the pitfalls that new users fall into.

Warm regards,
Lisa Butler

Thanks Lisa! Hey Lisa, are you coming on the Texas Songwriters Cruise?? I heard you were there last year. I will be going! We leave in 3 weeks! I would love to meet you!!

Tammy

www.TammyEdwards.com

Lisa! I checked out your myspace. Looks like you have the cruise on your schedule! YEA!! I get to meet you in person in 3 weeks. I just listened to your song "Strangers keeping company". Love the piano on that and melody, and the message too. Wow! Can alot of people relate or what? Drew me in! Nice job! See you in 3 weeks, wow you are coming from Australia!

Tammy

www.Tammyedwards.com

Oh, no, sorry - I misunderstood you. I meant I receive 5-10 of those per day (or, I would if I didn't have the comment-approval system enabled.)

Tammy, Yeah it sucks! I've been phished a couple of times,and have had to change my password,and been sent annoying comments by people who HAVE been phished, and it drives me nuts...Unfortunately for me MYSPACE has become too important a promotional tool to discard, so I just deal with it. But I wish that someone clever enough to create this concept to begin with could find a way to eliminate this crap!{Are you listening Tom?}

Just to expand the heads up on phishing, i was phished on Ebay once. Here is how it was done:

I received a question in my regular email account about an Ebay item that I did not have listed. So I replied to say that I did not have the item for sale by clicking on the Ebay link in the email. This took me to the Ebay sign in page (or so I thought) which asked for my account name and password. I continued and sent the note to the questioner/phisher who then had access to my account. Not long afterwards, my Ebay account has an expensive motorcycle for sale! A big hassle ensued, trying to get the listing removed, password changed, etc.

I am now more street wise to this crap.....hope this helps someone else.

Colin

My space is in West Virginia.
When I get Spam, it's in a little aluminum can. As with all Spam, it's best fried with cheese melted on it.

Well I guess I done got phished. Seems “Bad Betsy” has sent a comment to “Too Little Time” with that bikini video. Since I control both sites, I know it sure wasn’t me who sent it!

Changing passwords, etc. now to fix. If ether Bad Betsy or 2LT has sent any of you any comments please disregard and accept my apologies for not having the will power and common sense not to double click on a video of a girl in a bikini. Yet another example of how crack kills.

Iggy, I got that very same video today!{From Bad Betsy}

Man!!! Will somebody forward that video to me! Everyone else got to see it!

Always the last to see,
John

He haw!

Me, too (I think). I haven't received it--and yes, I propbably would click on something like that.

I did get that funny sign-in page one time yesterday, and closed it and tried again (and got it again). No bad aftereffects, though; at least, no personal messages from Bad Betty. I wonder if it helped that I have my computer set up *not* to remember the username and password, to force me to enter it each time and then promptly forget it.

Joe

I seemed to have had no problem getting videos like that! LOL Why me?? And everyday. So that is why my myspace went bye bye!!!

Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com

Tammy:

You bring up all the reasons I never opted to move in that direction. Too many mean-spirited punks out there just trying to have fun at someone else's expense or pull off a scam... or worse. These folks need to seriously tighten up on security.

You'll probably be alot happier with your own site or a "page" on a cleaner site. If you don't want to sell songs net-wise and are content to just let folks hear your music and then contact you direct, have a look at xenaRadio.com a North Carolina based "listening only" site handled by great folks. I think they offer basic (free) and various "premium" services. I have always used basic and really like what they do for me. Unfortunately, I can't listen there anymore 'cause they don't work well on older PCs using Win98 and dial-up. (A really rotten but fairly secure combination.)

Best wishes for success.

Dave Rice

Dave Hi! Thank you for posting your comment. I appreciate that. It is just too painful to get online and see day after day that this kind of junk has happened under my name. It is just so trashy! That is not what I am about. I will check out what you have mentioned. There just has to be some other options out there. Thank you!!

Tammy

www.Tammyedwards.com

Is the funny sign in page the same page that pops up when you enter a wrong password? The one that says "You can't do that"? I purposly misspelled my password to see it but I'm not sure if that's what everyone is talking about. Ben

http://benwillismusic.com

http://www.myspace.com/bwillismusic

http://lefthandedguitarplayer.blogspot.com/

Hi Tammy,

Yup! I'll be on the Cruise again this year. I can't wait! its fantastic and you're going to love it. I look forward to meeting you too!

Warm regards,
Lisa

Thanks Tammy! I love 'Strangers' too, and I agree with you about the piano playing. That's Chris, my partner.

Thanks for the kind comments. See you in a few weeks!

OK people! So check it out, Alicia Keyes and several others have been hacked on myspace. This whole thing is just not cool. Click on the link to read all about it.


http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1573921/20071109/keys_alicia.jhtml

Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com

Tammy - Even though myspace is far less than perfect, it remains the premier music networking site on the internet. My friends Billy Sherwood (Yes) and Tony Kaye (Yes's original keyboardist before Rick Wakeman and keyboards on Yes's 1980s mega-hit "Owner of A Lonely Heart") are promoting their super new band CiRCA (which also includes the great drummer Alan White of Yes) exclusively on myspace. No record label, no mamagement or promotion team, just great progressive music. What has it gotten them going just myspace - a headlining spot at one of the two premier annual progressive rock events in the USA, RoSFest in May of 2008!

Myspace can be a pain (and is, unfortunately owned by that robber-baron, conservative Fox News jerk Rupert Murdoch) however there is no better place on the web to both learn about new music AND communicate directly with musicians than myspace, IMO.

I have a myspace for my radio station and a myspace for my own vocal music and do not plan on giving either of them up anytime soon.

Best,

:)Steve

Newgrass, Prog & More Web Radio & Interviews
Tidewater, Virginia, USA

If you are going to post and promote yourself and or songs I highly suggest you have a WebMaster set you up a Web Site of your own. You can probably find someone locally to do it. It will cost you but it may be worth it.

My Publisher and I did that a while back. The site is not up anymore because of a few minor issues but a new one is in the works.

Hi Ray,

I totally agree that a pro website is definitely a must, so I have both! I find that I attract a lot of visits to my 'official' sites via my My Space sites.

Having said that, I am extremely fortunate in that my partner is a great web designer (in fact he loves it so much, he gave up music to start a small but successful web design business - go figure, but hey, I get the best of both worlds!)

Its also a good idea not to rely completely on My Space for networking and business. What if it falls apart overnight like other large music sites have in the past? Suddenly you have no presence on the web and you've lost all your contacts! My Space doesn't give you an email address so unless all your 'friends' give you their personal address which you can then store elsewhere, you'd lose the lot if My Space went down.

I will always have My Space sites, but I will always maintain full, official .com sites online too. I think its suggests a greater level of professionalism.

This only shows that JPF people are on the cutting edge of uncovering everything fraudulent and dispicable. Thank you Tammy, please read:
http://wcbstv.com/technology/macys.myspace.phishing.2.564526.html

Thank you Ben, for posting this. I waver back and forth on the myspace thing. I really want to have one, but I keep remember the pain and embarrassment of my music friends getting the Macy's cards and half naked woman and that stops me from creating a new one. I will hold of a bit to see if someone, somehow is going to do something about this. Thank you so much for posting your link!

Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com

I'm new to myspace and still don't get it. I have six friends who are all JPF people but I see people with hundreds and even thousands of friends. What's up with that? What's the advantage of it? Not because I'm new and unpopular I really want to know why one needs thousands of so-called friends. Ben

Well Ben, good point! I don't see the need to have 2,000, 6,000 or whatever friends. Do you really know them all? It's kind of dumb. Unless you do it is kind of like just trying to win a popularity contest. Everyone wants to just accept everyone as a friend. Seems a bit silly. Seems to me like a person would have a select few that you talk to and deal with. I don't know. All the more chance to get spammed.

Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com

I think I have 65 or so "friends" on MySpace, and except for "Tom" (who I think does not really exist--he's a stand-in for Rupert Murdoch) I believe they are all musicians or musician-equivalents (one I know is a poet). And I know just about all of them personally. I thus far have not rejected anybody as a "friend"--but all of the people who've asked (except "Tom," again, who did not ask) are people I know, who got the MySpace address off my business card (which I tuck into every CD).

Joe

It's hard to discount myspace as a musician/songwriter seeking to promote oneself. The phishing scams are unfortunate, and should be avoidable if one is vigilant and knows what to look for.

I am on myspace daily and have over 400 friends for my band so far. With very little attempt to attract listeners, I have somehow attracted over 3,000 visits to my page and over 4,000 'listens' to my little home demos. I think this is quite amazing and wonderful. Thousands of people from around the world have listened to my songs - I can't imagine how I could have accomplished that with so little effort in any other way.

Virtually every major recording artist has a myspace site, and I can't imagine any stand-alone website receiving the same level of unsolicited traffic as one can have on myspace. I am a music junkie and when I read record reviews of new records, my first visit is to myspace to sample the artist's music.

I have read many bulletins from the myspace people expressing their concern about the phishers and scammers and stating their policies to eradicate them. I have seen evidence of them working on this problem (accounts being revoked, etc.).

Boycotting myspace because of the handfull of idiots out there seems akin to boycotting New York City, for example, because they have too much crime. Its not the city so much as it is the few weasels trying to take short cuts.

Myspace is Like New York, Nashville, Lodon, LA, Sydney, Paris, Tokyo &c. all rolled into one. Avoiding myspace as a musician/band/artist is really shooting yourself in the foot.

When a band or artist invites you to be their friend on myspace, its either because they want you to come and have a listen to their music, or perhaps its because they like your music and want to remember you or perhaps wear you like something of a badge on on their list of top friends.

I have invited several artists to be my friend because I like them and I am always surprised when other artists turn down requests for myspace 'friendship' from other bands and artists - we listen to music too....

Myspace is certainly not perfect. I have had several technical issues with them and it seems vitually impossible to contact them. However, at this point in time, I cannot imagine trying to make a concerted effort at getting your music out there without using myspace. I would recommend you reconsider.

And to you other artists out there, open up and accept requests for friends, its either people who like your music or think you might like theirs. Give them a chance in the same spirit as you would like to be given the chance.

Well, I don't know if I agree, but I'm a MySpace infant, remember. It was my teenaged daughter who talked me into getting a MySpace "presence." I haven't, as noted above, refused any "friend" requests, but most of them have been from fellow musicians whom I know.

I have noticed a couple of things:

The songs I have posted on MySpace (just three, and only one off the CD) get a lot more "hits" than the ones I have posted on Soundclick. Virtually no feedback, though--and I want feedback to make me a better writer.

First time I posted an announcement of a gig, I started getting announcements from other performers about *their* gigs. And I have been able to tap some of them for advice about what works in dragging people in. I need that, too.

And the networking thing does work, too. When a gig I was going to do with a fellow songwriter got cancelled, I got the notification on MySpace--nowhere else.

Lastly, when I was in Nashville last summer for Pineyfest, I did get to meet one music publisher who acted interested in my material. (Of course, she never heard me perform it.) Did she want a CD? No. She simply asked, "You got a MySpace?" Yes. On the business card. "I'll check it out."

And I post my weekly blog ("The Writer's Blog") there, too, as well as on Blogspot, where I signed up originally. I do figure if it's going to get any attention, it's more likely to get it there.

And yes, I'd feel differently if I'd had a bad experience out of it. Thus far, I have not. Ain't been phished (I do try to be careful, though). And nobody's sent me any dirty videos (dang).

Joe

Joe....you were one of my favorite acts at the Lyrix show in Nashville back in early August. You gave me one of your CD's and I dig it! If you're ever in the Cincy or Kentucky area to perform let me know!

I think myspace is great. I've met a ton of music contacts and friends there. It's usually pretty obvious to me when I see fake links. Whenever you see people claiming to give free stuff away, or if you see pics of girls wanting you to click on a link, it's usually false.

Thanks guys! I have tried to think of new ways to prevent this from happening. I have created a new one and am trying to see how I can keep it as safe as possible. Still hoping they do better things for safety.

Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com

Tammy,

Go into your MySpace account and click on 'Settings' then click on Miscellaneous. Make sure thatall the HTML boxes are unclicked (in other words, you are disallowing HTML messages and comments.) this will go a long way towards eradicating the problem.

Also, in Settings, click on Spam and set the Overall Presets to Custom (as far as you can go). In the Communications Settings, I have the Comments set to 'Require approval before comments are posted' and I only allow Friends to send me invitations.

Hope this helps.

Lisa, great advice! Thanks! Got it done now. Maybe that will help! I so thrilled. This is very helpful!!

Tammy

www.tammyedwards.com