I’ve had several swap requests in the last week, many more than in the last YEAR — is there some new feature that I’m missing, or is it just coincidence?
I have my account set to “interested in swaps”, it’s just weird to get so many all of a sudden.
We haven’t changed anything significant on the website related with that, and I don’t think we’ve seen a big influx of new members lately neither… 
What a mystery!
If you’ve made a donation to Postcrossing recently, your avatar was displayed on the frontpage for some time — could that be it?
I don’t think so, as my supporter anniversary is in April. Maybe I’m just lucky? 
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Did you maybe send a postcard that was popular/favourited a couple of times?
I have noticed that swap requests seems to go in waves for some reason. Often weeks go pass without any and then suddenly I have 3-5 requests in one day. Haven’t really noticed any specific pattern on the members’ countries, activity or anything, so I have just assumed it is a coincidence or I have been registering /uploading cards at the right moment for the wider audience to see my profile popping up.
Maybe it is because so many people are staying at home right now and looking for different ways to keep contact to the world, and many of the other hobbies/money using stuff has become unavailable. One can send only so many official cards
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One of my new Postcrossing connections to recently reached out to me and asked for a direct swap. I’m always happy to exchange cards so I agreed… he wrote back with a nice message but then ended it by asking for a photo of my face. Is that common on Postcrossing? I felt uncomfortable so I didn’t respond back and just left it at that.
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I don’t think that is common. Has never happened to me, and to be honest I would be very uncomfortable too if somebody asked for a pic. Especially after short communication. Would understand better if it was a long time card exchange going on.
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Thanks, I’m new to Postcrossing so that’s good to know!
Yeah, that’s not cool, but kinda creepy. There’s no reason to ask for it, unless you’d been corresponding for a long time. I’ve done a fair number of direct swaps & what is most important is how you connect with someone, things you can relate to on their profile, not their picture.
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Thank you, the exchange made me feel uncomfortable so I ended the conversation right then and there. I did not report him though… it seemed like he was very established on Postcrossing with thousands of cards sent and received. Hopefully it was just a one-off or misunderstanding.
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In Western countries, people generally pay more attention to privacy, but everyone’s values are originally different. Some people collect stamps, others collect Coke bottles, and some people collect lighters. In the same way, some people like to collect alphabets from all over the world, some like to collect night photos of capitals of various countries, some like lighthouses…
So, I think some people always want to see what the sender looks like. This doesn’t seem incomprehensible, right?
It’s just that this person may be less concerned about other people’s (portrait or privacy) thoughts, and he bravely made a request.
If you don’t like it, just refuse, but don’t think too much, keep a good mood!
I think it may just be a particularity of the person. (As in being more spontaneous and wanting to actually put a face to the messages). Recently I got a swap request very friendly and respectful, then we exchanged e-mail accounts and after a few e-mails the person asked for a pic. I felt weird so I didn’t send but he did and so it went on. It turns out he was just curious and less shy than I. Now I have seen him, his daughter and a beautiful place he visited.
Of course this may not be like every case, but I learned I don’t need to be so suspicious all the time (however, I still didn’t send any photos because I really don’t like it).
I think I’ve received more swap requests in the last couple of days than ever. On the website, I mean. I would understand if it was on the forum as I can’t seem to shut up here, but all of these requests came from the website.
It’s nice but a bit overwhelming, I confess. 
I don’t think I’d survive if I was a famous person. 
I am curious about the how and why is this happening, though. I didn’t make any contribution to Postcrossing recently or anything. Maybe some universal randomness, who knows. I wouldn’t mind if this randomness was distributed throughout the time instead of all at once. 
I received two swap requests in the same month (I think it was September). My profile is set to “not interested in swaps”, so I was surprised that not one but two people contacted me, within one week from each other! I did swap with both, they sent lovely cards. And luckily nobody asked to see my face 
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at the start of this year i received a request for a direct swap from a 28yo boy from india, he told me to write him to his email and so we did.
i asked him to start as the first sender of a postcard and promised to reply with a new postcard as soon as i received his first postcard, but i never received his postcard.
every now and then i received an emai of his, he was very kind, respectful, obsequious, he called me dear elder brother, telling me how difficult it was for him to find a job, how poor his family was and he asked me about my job, about coronavirus in my country.
everytime i replied with some short answers and telling him i still haven’t receive his postcard.
then he asked me if i knew some rich people in my country who could help him to find a job in my country after paying his flight, he also enclosed all his documents, but he never asked me for money.
i replied i’m just an ordinary worker, i don’t know rich people who could help him.
then he asked for my mobile number.
when i replied i don’t like to give my mobile number to people i don’t personally know, he stopped writing me.
the last time was at the start of the summer
(A) card(s) sent shown on the mainpage maybe, or the profile featured as recent supporter might make other users notice your profile …
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Creepy.
Is this person still active on postcrossing?
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@yudi it happened on another site for swapping postcards, working like postcrossing, but it doesn’t matter where it happened.
i don’t remember his username, i don’t know if he’s active on postcrossing too, i didn’t check, but he could have used different usernames.
i never felt stalked by him, i never thought he could be a dangerous person.
he’s never been obsessive with me, i think i received less than 10 emails in 4-5 months.
he stopped and that’s enough for me and i don’t think i will ever hear from him again,
i could spam him anyway.
i only regret i let him know my address as a lot of people usually do when they agree to swap postcards
I have my account set to not interested in direct swaps, simply because I don’t have the money to do many swaps to be honest, even if I would like to, but I did receive some more messages asking for a direct swap (both on postcrossing and other platforms) for world postcard day I suppose? But that’s pretty logical I think