Paid $300 for a forum archive tool, got my account nuked instead

I run a small niche forum about vintage computer repair and got tired of losing old threads to server crashes. So I spent $300 on this software that supposedly backed up everything locally and even let me export posts in bulk. Installed it, ran a full export, and it worked fine for one day. Next morning my forum account was suspended for suspicious activity because the tool spammed the server with requests and triggered the anti-bot system. Support said they couldn't help since third-party tools violate their terms, even though they don't list that anywhere obvious. Ended up losing access to my own community for two weeks while an admin manually reviewed everything. Has anyone else dropped serious cash on a tool that ended up getting them banned instead of helping?

2 comments

2 Comments

knight.diana4d ago

My buddy paid $150 for a scraper once and it somehow ordered him 40 pizzas through his own account.

river_scott4d ago

Honestly that sounds more like a bot detection problem than a tool problem, 300 bucks is rough though.