Hi Randy,
Please note kaukau's post regarding a dubious e-mail sent via FlyerTalk's e-mail a member facility.

Given the sophistication of the scam perpetrated in the story in the above thread (in that case a first-class confidence trick via a dating site), are you aware of other cases of 'Nigerian scammers'/tricksters targeting FT members via the 'email a member' function?

While I think most FTers would see through any scam attempt via e-mail, it would be good to catch this early to reduce the risk.

Hopefully FT can cross-check scammer e-mail addresses and offending e-mails (and possibly e-mail header info) in case this identifies the perp.

I wonder how many people have been targeted to date, who are active members and read ORP?

Why should HOM/IB be responsible for filtering what users can be filtering for themselves? The user's discretion is to allow all other FTers to email you, admins only or no one at all.

Because there is the opportunity to tarnish the stellar reputation of Flyertalk by association.

FT's stellar reputation gets tarnished because a poster didn't take the time to READ, much less edit his/her own settings??

Are you sure it was an e-mail and not a PM? I got a similar PM, but no e-mail.

I have been a member of FlyerTalk for almost ten years now and never once have I received any e-mails that would indicated that HOM has been anything but uber vigilant in protecting our privacy.

I had the same question for the Moderators who were kind enough to have already collected the information I needed. It is PM only not email and while we can't actually read members PM, we have taken steps to eliminate this message for our members.

But in defense of this member, here's something i posted earlier today in the Moderator forum - for what it's worth:
"i really would not want to restrict her PM account if indeed she's been a good member other than this incident and maybe just made a bad mistake because of a bad incident in her life - seeking help. We don't know where else she tried for help, but somehow it's comforting to know that people think of FT when they really do need help.

This is similar in a way to last year when a member posted about their life going downhill and ended up in a homeless shelter and seeking help. We did not suspend that person, rather we did soft delete the post (i understand the differecne between a post vs. email or PM blast) and then went on with the FT CAres program to provide many hundreds of thousands of points towards rooms so the member could shower and get respectable for job interviews. I'm proud to say that the person considers that FlyerTalk saved his life (had some very bad thoughts) and today has a job and working his way back out of that situation."

As an update, no email addresses were ever in danger and we continue to safeguard that information as we have for the past nine years.

It looks like the member might have sent out about 50 PM's for help. We are in contact with the member to see if things are OK and have limited any further exposure of these messages to our members earlier today. As noted above, there is a balance in protecting our members and thanks to the volunteer Moderators for having gotten on this situation earlier on.

As well, BiziBB, thanks for your concern and heads up.

The other question that I had was whether or not she knew that the offer of money constituted an illegal solicitation (at least in the eyes of the airlines).
While on one hand the offer of money added to her legitimacy, on the other hand it also created a serious problem.

I have had a number of FlyerTalkers, as well as relatives, my church, and even my airlines, ask me for free tickets over the years, and it never upsets me when it happens. I always respond politely, if not alway as generously as they would like. When the cause sounds really good, I have been know to spring for it myself and ask other FlyerTalkers to join in the cause, so I don't really see any harm in asking.

She may not have known which is why in my post above you'll see that i was hesitant to throw too much of the book at her. Balancing any of that with the privacy and best interest of all our members is not a an exact science but I think we score extremely high.

And that was a most honorable response, for which you are to be congratulated. ^

FWIW, I received the request via e-mail, not PM. I merely deleted it, as I do all spam.

Aloha kakou!

Info Tidbit: you can forward *real* Nigerian scam spam to: <[email protected]> ~ and tho it doesn't happen much anymore, snail mail of that genre is of interest to your local USPO inspectors.

FWIW.
/.

kaukau, was that FlyerTalk e-mail, or your own e-mail?

Mmmmmm.......it was one of those "FlyerTalk does not accept responsibility for the contents of this e-mail sent to my e-mail address" da kine e-mail, IIRC.

Yep. I got the PM in question as well:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=761815

Anyway I am always suspicious when I see someone looking something for nothing i.e. on CC for "death" in the family or for armed forces family member etc.