Hi All, so i received an email from a member telling me he was looking for friends around the world with his phone number and email. Has this happened to anyone else? Ive just ignored the message. On his profile he is a member since 2014 but has 8 sent and 12 received cards.
I suggest you use the contact form on the main site (Help > Contact) and them them who sent the message and a copy of their message. I think it would be useful to know that, in case others experience the same.
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Please tell the support about this if you think that message was inappropriate. Did you keep that email? If you deleted it, maybe you can recover it from the digital bin?
You can reach the support via the main site.
It’s a good decision not to directly react to such a message.
I’m sure this has happened to other people as well. I also received some quirky messages over the years, but usually wasn’t bothered to do anything about it.
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As you already received answers for your question, this topic will close in a few hours. If that’s not okay with you, please let me know.
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I haven’t received anything like this. But I have occasionally noticed people writing their email address and/or physical address on their official profile and encouraging individuals interested in swapping or becoming penpals to contact them. I’ve never encountered someone writing their phone number, though.
And I think once or twice on the penpal section of the forum, I’ve noticed postings from people who were looking to connect romantically with others. These I just ignored as that is not what I use Postcrossing for.
As the mods wrote, if you feel like the message was extremely inappropriate, then you should contact Postcrossing support so they can assess it and intervene as needed.
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If a rich king from somewhere in Africa reads this, and he needs to slush some funds away. Feel free to message me.
(Now the bots will target me)
All jokes aside, I think it’s best to just report something you find inappropriate.
Oh and if someone ever messages you, they will give you money but you need to pay them a fee first. It’s a scam. Do not trust anyone in the internet that pretends he or she will give you a free ATM card, box of gold or whatever. It’s a advance fee scam. Don’t fall for them. Think about it: if they can give you two million dollars or euros and you first need to pay them 500 for delivery. They could have just taken that from the two millions.
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Well,
It may be naive, but I would actually answer this person. Maybe he really doesn’t know how to find some friends…
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A suggestion: consider responding with an offer to be a penpal, with a suggested period of, for example, 6 months. He already has your address. Set ground rules, such as writing once-a-month, or every other week. Whatever you have time for.
By making an initial offer to write, your phone number remains private.
Once you spend some time writing back-and-forth, you might, indeed, be glad to make a new friend. Or not. If not, you can end the penpal relationship at the agreed end-time and move on; glad you didn’t share your phone number.
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Catfishers are numerous on Facebook. I suppose some poke around here too. Best that you deleted the message.
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Not necessarily! The way I read it, this was an email (forwarded through Postcrossing) from a random member, not from someone who had previously drawn her address and sent her a card.
Also, if you’re worried about being stalked, it is important to end things before they start. Even if someone did already have my address, if they sent me a message that made me uncomfortable, I would definitely not offer to become penpals. That could give them time to build unrealistic expectations about where the relationship was going.
To me, there’s nothing inherently “inappropriate” about someone reaching out looking for friends, but if you’ve had no previous interaction with them, it’s highly suspicious. This sound like at best a scammer, at worst a stalker. I don’t think someone looking for genuine friendship would contact random profiles with a generic message. They’d respond back to people they received cards from, or at least write a more convincing message as to why the particular profile caught their attention in the first place. When something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t, and encouraging this person or leading them along could be dangerous.
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I’m glad you’re being vigilant. Always trust your gut. I’ve already been scammed (or at least they tried) by two different members. This interaction you had doesn’t feel right. Good job just ignoring it. But please do contact the help center. These kinds of people need to be monitored so someone else who may not be as vigilant doesn’t get caught up in anything.
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I’m not sure if it’s an inappropriate thing / message. Maybe it could be if you have your postcrossing profile set to not interested in direct swap. But yes, just trust your gut. If I were you I would just be frank that I’m not interested and tell the person that he should stop sharing his numbers randomly
While it sounds shady, unfortunately in many cultures of online world of few countries, sharing phone numbers with strangers randomly is a common thing, so it could be just different online behaviour culture
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Someone once wrote to me here, in forum, with a message that they would like to be a penpal with me. It wasn’t anyone I have ever noticed in the forum, a complete stranger.
I sent this person a link to a Penpal section here, in the forum, suggested that it would be way easier to find a friend this way, deleted myself from the conversation and didn’t think about it anymore.
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When I first joined Postcrossing, I put that I was “open to direct swaps.” I got a couple odd emails and it stopped when I changed it to no direct swaps. As others have already said, trust your gut and do not reply, but definitely let Admin know. Maybe it’s nothing or maybe it won’t be the first time Admin has heard about this person and they’ll do something about it.
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