A forum set up to assist users of MYOB accounting software has been so heavily crippled by spam that users have now been forced to join other help forums, and its owner to offload the site to somebody who can better manage it.
Typically, visitors to supportforum.com.au should find subjects like 'Wrong ledger entry when entering a sale' or 'Inventry loaded as incorrect'. Instead, they are now greeted with headlines such as 'Super hot blonde teens' and 'Cheap drug generic tramadol zyrtec' to name a few.
supportforum.com.au has grown to become a popular site for local MYOB users. It was started in August 2004 by Craig Fryer as a result of his frustration with MYOB and its lack of user forums.
"Most major publishers have a user forum where users can share ideas and ask questions. MYOB had chosen not to do this and there seemed to be no other alternatives. Users were often left with the only option of paying for support," said Fryer, whose day time job is the Editor/Director of a Web site called Japanese Lifestyle.
However, so bad has the spam become today, Fryer has been forced to pass on the ownership of it to somebody who can better tackle the problem.
"I plan to give away the site to someone who is suitable and would continue to operate the site to benefit MYOB users."
Fryer said spam has been slowly creeping into the supportforum.com.au site.
"Over the last year or so I have made several attempts to beat the spammers, but it was taking an increasing amount of time and becoming very frustrating. We implemented several different anti spam solutions, only to have them defeated by the spammers...Someone with time and skills should be able to recover the site to the point where it is a very useful resource again," he said.
Although the spam has been present on the site for some time, a visit to supportforum.com.au reveals it has become prolific since September last year, with MYOB-specific questions totally gobbled up by unrelated topics associated with sex, girls and drug products.
Some of supportforum.com.au's regular contributors have since recommended users head to other MYOB sites such as http://www.veechicurtis.com.au and http://www.yourmyob.com.
Naomi Helleren, Public Relations consultant for MYOB Australia said MYOB has a number of support tools for customers.
"While there is no official forum as such, MYOB users are able to access our Support Notes system on our website (www.myob.com.au)."
She said support information is also available here.