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DaveAZ Author

Level 1

35 points

first calendar now photos invitation spam

I have gotten a couple of spam calendar invites in the past two weeks. I was careful to follow the protocol for deleting them without sending a reply back to the sender (create a new calendar named "junk" or whatever, move the invitation to that calendar, delete that calendar and when asked decline to send reply for invites).

Now I just got a spam invitation in Photos so share photos.

Is there a way to deal with this without having any comfirmation/reply being sent back to the sender?

Is there some way to block all of this kind of spam?

Thanks,

Dave

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Nov 4, 2016 8:11 AM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,597 points

Posted on Nov 4, 2016 9:49 AM

Now I just got a spam invitation in Photos so share photos.

Why do you think this is spam? Usually it's someone who knows you and is wanting to share some photos with you. If you don't wan't to see the shared photos just delete the email that you got and forget it.

View in context

67 replies

Nov 12, 2016 12:52 PM in response to DaveAZ

Yeah this is starting to get annoying. I keep getting these and there seems to be no way to prevent it from happening.

Waggysue

Level 1

12 points

Nov 13, 2016 9:05 PM in response to JDSlacker

I only started getting all of these issues immediately upon restarting iOS update on my iPhone. At the time when my calendar literally filled with requests for every day I just declined not knowing what else to do.

Later that evening I started getting the iPhoto requests in the app not by email.

I have had another today. As I said it was immmediately upon restarting phone on update.

So annoying and the only advice given was to reset phone. I couldn't see what that would achieve when once I set it all up again the requests would still be sent quoting my email.

I've done nothing with the request today hoping I could block it or the invitee. Apple it seems could address this if they can fix other issues.

I will keep looking for a fix but all of the messages here help if only that I'm not alone with this problem.

estusal

Level 1

9 points

Nov 14, 2016 11:06 AM in response to DaveAZ

When translating the Chinese characters from one of the invitations that keeps coming to Photos, this is what it says (according to Google translate):

"MGC mobile phone play (no quota conversion), high-fold odds, so you put it down, enjoy the daily 1.5% high backwater, 1 yuan deposits, 50 yuan debited to the credit!"

Another recurring invitation (in Chinese) is:

"Golden Sand Group 3330107.com New AG video luxury hall grand on-line, top luxury, support WeChat Alipay large deposits, 200 million withdrawals 30 seconds rushed into account, enjoy the daily high backwater 1.8%"

Annoying! Hackers will always find ways to get you with their obnoxious advertisements! Apple must do something about this, allowing us to block these invitations getting directly into our Photos and Calendars apps.

Mzjaa

Level 1

4 points

Nov 15, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Adrian Head

Would you mind explaining what the temp calendar trick is please. Having the same issue. Thanks

DaveAZ Author

Level 1

35 points

Nov 15, 2016 9:55 AM in response to Mzjaa

Create a New Calendar, name it "Junk" or whatever, move the spam event to that calendar then delete that new calendar. I think it asks you if you want to notify event owners -- the correct answer is No. That way the spammer doesn't see that it's a working email address.

Nov 15, 2016 10:49 PM in response to DaveAZ

I've just received the same invite. If I just decline will it prove to the sender that I'm a real account so they can hack my personal info? I may call Apple with this one.

Nov 16, 2016 12:55 AM in response to bugaddict

I called Apple yesterday and will be talking to them about it today. It sounds like they have a team on the case. If there's any solutions posited, I'll post on here.

Nov 16, 2016 12:41 PM in response to turcotma

Now it's affecting Reminders! And it's not Chinese - it's based in Singapore. And the info is correct - with each "decline" - the spammer knows it's an active number so we end up getting more of this nonsense! I have turned off all sharing on IPhoto's and the calendar so they resorted to spamming my reminders and I can delete iit! Nuts!

Nov 16, 2016 12:46 PM in response to estusal

Wow thanks for the great info - I thought it was from Singapore - went to the website which had multi-digit numerical sequence followed with .com and couldn't read a thing - didn't click on anything - this is so annoying! Apple should fix this with a way to block these "invites". What I would like to know is HOW are they finding us and WHY are they using these apps to harass us? Good grief! Thanks for your info again and please post anything new you learn here because I am very interested!

Nov 17, 2016 3:55 AM in response to DaveAZ

This worked perfectly thank you!!

liz1313

Level 1

4 points

Nov 17, 2016 4:01 AM in response to DaveAZ

I've got this going on in Calendar and Photos and now Reminders as well. C'mon Apple, are you working on this??

Nov 17, 2016 5:09 AM in response to DaveAZ

I turned off the shared albums in iPhoto's - and it seemed to work because I haven't gotten any more Chinese or Singapore "invites" - but it's like they figured that out and sent the invites to my "reminders" and to my knowledge - there isn't any way to turn that off like I did with the shared pictures. With the calendar, I simply added the email and website info to my contacts and then blocked both of the email addresses. I don't know if that actually worked but I haven't gotten any more "invites" in the calendar. I read somewhere that - if at all possible - avoid "decline" or acknowledging the invite because that tells them it's an active phone number.

What I would really like to know is HOW they did this and WHY? Are they hacking into ICloud? It's a bit unnerving to say the least...I sure hope APPLE gets on this ASAP before whatever this is either becomes as frequent as email spam or something more sinister...

DaveAZ Author

Level 1

35 points

Nov 17, 2016 10:42 AM in response to curiousNcamarillo

As for the How, I think all they need is a list of email addresses. They then just blast out invitations to all of them and see what returns they get. Since currently these Apple apps (Calendar, Photos, etc) don't apparently do any filtering of sharing invitations these come right through.

Looking at invitations I've gotten and who else that invitation is going to, they seem to be sent to a big list of email addresses sorted alphabetically.

I would think Apple could just filter out any sharing invitations from addresses that aren't already in your contacts list and that would work just fine for the large percentage of users but they don't seem to be doing that currently. They also could come up with a way for users to mark invitations as spam so they could then filter them prior to getting forward to individual users.

Do Apple support people usually respond on these forums?

Dave