SPAM - from Pistonheads

[200sxjon]

I'm an occasional visitor to Pistonheads, but have been getting email spam for the last two weeks.

I use Sneakemail addresses when signing up for new stuff, that forward to my normal hotmail address, so I can tell the spam came from the address used for Pistonheads.
Is this a random event, or is there some sort of forum policy for this ?
I can disable that particular sneakemail address, but am curious if this is a common thing.

[200sxjon]

just checked my profile and realised that I've never posted before.

Erm.......hi everybody :wave:

Why am I getting spam ?

[dazren]

Just moved this thread to the "website feedback" section. The site owner should see your comments here.

DAZ
(moderator)

[200sxjon]

Ahh, there's a clue. I saw no "my info" stuff so swapped from Firefox to Internet Explorer. There it is

I kind of wondered earlier why there was no search button.

The research continues.

[200sxjon]

Normally I am only found on the SXOC forum (vbb format) and I didn't realise Pistonheads had so much stuff missing when using Firefox. That's not today's issue though.

When signing up for Pistonheads (about 10months ago) I have unchecked Promotional emails, and asked for all emails to be text only, not html.
For two weeks now I've been getting html emails from car related suppliers.

Needless to say, it's beyond Saturday midnight when I decided to come here and complain, and I don't have an example to show you. All deleted already.

I'll collect a few spam mails this week and try to see where they come from.

Oh, and maybe read Pistonheads a bit more now I've a search and 'new post' button to play with :thumbs:

[JonRB]

I've been a member of PistonHeads for over 4 years and I can assure you that PetrolTed (the site owner) would not knowingly send out spam. You may receive occasional promotional emails if you have explicitly opted in for them though.

With regards to FireFox, there are a high proportion of techies on this site, of which 'Ted is one, and FireFox is pretty well supported. I'm very surprised to learn that some things don't work for you with FireFox because I use it all the time with no apparant loss of functionality. Maybe you need to check your settings. Are you blocking cookies and JavaScript perhaps?

Edit: I have just run a few tests and can confirm that (somewhat unsurprisingly) disabling JavaScript in Tools -> Options -> Web Features in FireFox will result in the menus not being displayed.

>> Edited by JonRB on Sunday 9th October 09:51

[PetrolTed]

Hi Jon,

Needless to say I take the privacy of PH members extremely seriously.

PH does not release email addresses to any other organisation unless you give us permission to do so when you sign up. By default that setting is "no, don't send me anything or give my address to anyone".

Our 'promotional' list will always include a PistonHeads header and footer so you'll clearly see that we've sent the mail.

Lots of people do use identifiable email addresses when signing up to PH so that they know where emails originate. This is the first report of spam of this kind that I've had in the 4+ years that the membership system has been in place. I'm sure there's a simple explanation.

Please forward me some of the emails you're receiving and I'll investigate their origins.

Please mail to ted at pistonheads.com

Thanks,
Ted

[200sxjon]

Cheers guys.
The Javascript thing makes sense. I'm no computer technie and didn't realise I'd turned it off.

I'll forward any new mails that arrive.

Jon

[200sxjon]

Cheers for email, Ted.

It seems I signed up for 'selectyourmail' originally, via the signup page
www.pistonheads.com/members/new.asp

All sorted.