I help moderate a charity group (being a little vague here). Has to do with joining activities the charity sponsors (ongoing forever, I'll call it sailing).
If someone dodgy joins your group, what are they after, what's their game?
Assuming it isn't simple spam plan. I thought maybe the fraudsters want to privately message other members to sell their products, but also fretted about account cloning. Or maybe none of above?
More Context:
I am definitely the most suspicious moderator, the other moderators would let anybody into the group.
I am the one who set up a screening question (really fundamental Q to the activity). Imagine I asked "do you go sailing on water, desert or mountains?"
Getting that answer wrong is bad sign but not definitive.
If they don't answer or answer wrong, Usually I can spot sailboats in their public profile so fine, they just clicked incorrect option on the question, it can happen.
Some Recent requests look dodgy to me. Specific example: requests from young women in friendly poses. Their profiles are otherwise locked down. They only joined FBk recently. They answered the screening question wrong. There's no indication in their profile/pics that they are otherwise interested in 'sailing'. They don't have friends already in the group or any moderation bans on other groups.
About the fraudulent looking applicants in general... If there are public details, they suggest our applicant is age < 40, went to Ivy League Unis, work for Fortune500 companies, grew up in USA and work there now but often live somewhere (in USA) without offices for the big company (meanwhile, our activity is parochial in UK). They often have mixed cultural clues in their public identity (our participants are 95% British white & > age 40). The fake accounts are members of FBk groups all over the world & often highly diverse and very small specific location clubs, imagine small chess clubs, crocheting and... sailing.
I just want to block the wee feckers.
It's hard to engage with the other moderators.
The charity provided 'training' but that training was just about not getting into flame wars and being unemotional in our own posts (so appropriate to 2002 not 2022), not about spotting fraudsters and fakers or borderline inappropriate group content.
Do I have to engage with the other moderators or should I just block the suspect ones or shall I try to msg the applicants who look dodgy to verify they are legit?
I could ignore the apparent fraudsters (other Mods will let them in eventually) but put recurring messages in the group saying that if they get any weird approaches from other group members please report to Mods asap. This would be fine action now, & could do immediately. And would be safest (& least effort) because I don't want to ban legit real people.
Feeling a bit stuck here. I can take all my concerns to the charity & ask them to upgrade their policies or even have a policy, but it will be a bureaucratic maze & take a lot of time & effort to make them prioritise this.
Thanks in advance.
ps: it's a great group, super informative & helpful, I don't want it poisoned.