It seems the bug has been resolved. Thanks.

Some followup information on what your problem was, would be useful for anyone with similar problem in future that finds this thread.

We tried to fix it, but it did not work. 

Then I posted here, and suddenly it works. We have no idea why it didn't work, or why it works now. But several people tested and confirmed the problem when it existed.

All is good now. Thanks.

i am here to help you as much as possible for FREE!

The Arck Interactive team can help with your projects. Please contact me via the form on our site and we'll get the process started.

I am overwhelmed by the response privately, and I see a few have also written here in the thread. Thanks so much for your interest everyone.

I really didn't think a post like this would garner any response really. I expected people to be burried deep in their own projects, but it turns out there are also developers out there eager to join a team that really want to create something new (and for that we need the PHP developers. As for now we have 2 basic websites using Elgg, but set up however in a slightly different way than intended).

Thank you for your interest everyone. 

Temporary disable validation via Email.. Validate account by admin...

that was a joke (but e.g. is my real life client) ->
and spammers did that damage over a *random 2 days only !
total time to resolve = 5 minutes !;-P ohh lolz..
and not was a moodle site not elgg !

Thanks saurabh, and also a thank you to both Matt and DhrupDeScoop.

I have had no spam profiles in the last 12 hours, but 2 profiles managed to sign up after I turned off the ability to sign up, and that puzzled me a bit?!?

I'm gonna try and turn off email validation like saurabh is suggesting. If I can make the spam stop totally, then I'm slowly going to switch things back on.

It seems spam bots hook on to your site and 'call the others' as soon as they are successful once? I'm curious to see if it will have any effect to shut signups down for a few days.