Fodors assigning new passwords?
 

Out of the clear blue sky, I just got an email from Fodors saying my new password is __________. Sure enough, when I went to post a message, it made me register and suddenly my old password wasn't good. Anybody else experiencing this? Or is this the result of somebody trying to get my password or trying to sign in as me and using the wrong password? What is this all about?

I smell a rat. It hasn't happened to me (yet)!

I got 2 mails today from sites saying the same thing. I deleted them. You might want to do the same.

Wow that is bizarre Patrick. Did you have to register all over again? Very strnag. Was it an errant cookie or something, do you think?

I am hoping Fodors is trying to control the Trolls with the name and registration changes every day.
Or worse, the ones who steal valid poster screen names to attack other posters.

Yes, I had to sign in with the new password they sent me. My old one wouldn't work. Then I changed my password back to my old one.
I haven't signed in with password in ages as I'm bookmarked to the Europe forum, and always go there, already logged in. This was the first time I couldn't post -- just minutes after the email came -- and I had just posted a few minutes before that. Suddenly I had been "logged out" and had to log back in using the new password.

testing

Nope...no problem here.

No problem for me...

I have occasionally had that problem. I think it's related to a computer malfunction at my end, when it has happened. I used to change screen names when it happened, but finally figured out I could just go back to the one I wanted easily, so I've been Orcas for awhile. I was gocats2002, or something like that, before. Remember me? In the good old days, I posted under two names, one for travel and one for politics. The censors clamped down, though, so no more politics. Wonder what happened to Uncle Sam? (NO! That was not me!!!!)

Patrick, I wondered how that would work, so I looked and my guess is that someone clicked on "Forgot Password". All it does is prompt for a username or email address. I'm surprised Fodors hasn't built any sort of cross check to keep other people from resetting your password, but apparently all they have to do is type "Patrick" to change it. My guess is that's whats happening.

And I was in NYC - I din't do it!

hmmm. So are you saying if you did actually forget your password and clicked on that on the log in site, Fodors would send you a new password, rather than tell you what yours was? Incidentally, I didn't have to re-register, and never resubmitted my email address. I just had to enter the new password they sent me to log back on for posting.

Patrick, have you e-mailed Fodors to question them about this? It might be a good idea. Best regards.

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying. If you click that link, then enter your login name, it sends a new password to the email address listed under that username's account. Even if someone else typed the username - no verification that it's you asking to have the password reset. I'm not sure why anyone would do that to someone else's account, but you know how the net is.

Patrick, don't you think it was done by that troll on the Europe Board? I do!!

Last week I had to repost my name and password out of the clear blue sky.I usually just keep my "log in" as I post from home.

Could it be "phishing"?

I got an email from Ebay stating we had to re-register. We deleted it. When I went into the challenge/response section of our email, it showed that it came from an internet cafe, not Ebay.

GBelle

Can you tell a non techie how to do that? We've gotten several of those emails from Ebay. The first time I started to fill out the form, but when it wanted my credit card info - I deleted it. I've deleted all subsequent emails.

I have an ibook, if that makes a difference and use the email that came with it.

I haven't gotten this new password thing from Fodors.

Thanks!

If you get an email asking you to click a link and put in personal info, don't. But that's not what happened to Patrick. He got an email giving him his new fodors password, came to fodors on his own (not through a link in the email I presume) and needed that new password.

And I agree with Clifton. Someone clicked "forgot password" and put in your username. It could be someone being mean, or it could be someone who hasn't posted here in a while and couldn't remember what username they posted with. They thought it was Patrick, but they were wrong!

At least it did let you set it back to the old value. Occasionally I've run across one that wouldn't allow that, and suddenly you have a whole new password to remember. :)

Hi Patrick, I have to say I agree with Clifton and jlm_mi that someone tried to log in under your user name. Last year I had a brain f@rt (actually, I am a cronic sufferer but this one really stands out) and could not remember the password to one of our financial accounts--after three tries that was it, no more attempts, please call xyz, re-set password.

Well, since we have a return on the Europe board of a long time troll, posting under a new name as of last night, who is making lots of silly posts and who even copied one of my posts about a hotel to stay in, but changed the name of the hotel, yet "satirised" my post and included my words "I wouldn't stay anywhere else" -- I suspect that is who did it. We do still have some immature children coming here to pretend to be real posters. And when I posted this same message on the Fodor's board, that troll poster posted "yes, I had to change my password too." Yea, I'll bet.

There are posts from , supposedly, EBay as well as Comcast telling people to "update" their account information..all scams...delete them.

What about the king in Africa who has so much money he wants to open a joint account with me--that's legit, right? ;-)

Patrick -

I suspect that the troll you are referring to was the same one who posted the offensive Pope post. I had spent quite some time responding to the Pope offender on a different thread about the Red Light District (before his offense), and at that time noticed that his (?888) other posts were about Scandanavian countries.

I understand Fodor's needing to kick the ?888 guy off the board (only to resurrect under a different name) but why did Fodor's have to delete the entire thread on the Red Light District, which contained a lot of useful information for not only this troll but other travellers as well? Sorry, I just needed to get that little rant out of my system..... Peace. :)>-

Robyn

let's see if this works.

Test Al Gore loves men

But not girliemen or AAhnolds.

This seems like the sort of post where the Fodors editors should make their presence known and bring some insight into what's going on. In the least to let us know whether or not this was a legitimate email from Fodors, or not.

Patrick, I can't fathom anyone else wanting to pose as you. There is truly only one Patrick ;;)

The email was definitely legit. Patrick came back to fodors and couldn't log in with his old password - only with the new one.

Anyone curious about this, log out and then try to log in but instead click where it says "forgot password" or similar. You'll get the same email, and can log in with your new password. Then you can change it back to your old password.

This is <b>completely</b> different from the ebay/bank/etc. scams where they ask you to click a link and input personal info.

Meanwhile I posted this same message on the Europe board last night. This morning the entire thread has been removed. But the many posts by alskar_stockholm, the suspected troll who was trying to imitate me are still there, including posts in which she makes up names of hotels, streets, and shops and answers posts using this fake information &quot;just for fun&quot;. I have emailed the editors asking what is going on. This is the poster than I suspect was trying to &quot;steal&quot; my identity, if someone was. Why would the editors leave her posts, but remove my question about passwords?

Meanwhile I got a really funny email recently from Earthlink, saying I needed to log on and give them information or my email account would be in jeopardy. The funniest thing was I could barely read the entire email as English was clearly not the native language of the person sending the email. Obviously a scam trying to get information.

At times when I have had to clean out various combinations of cookies, adware, spyware from my computer, it has also deleted stored passwords, account numbers, etc from various sites. While this does not explain why Fodors would ask for or assign a new password, it might explain why your identity was not available to you. The other explanation is that your computer was taken over by aliens.

gail, but it's kind of hard to imagine that I was on the Fodors site at the time and had just posted a message when I got my &quot;you've got mail&quot; signal and went to find that I had just been assigned a new password. I returned to Fodors and tried to post another message but then was directed to the log in page. So there was no chance that I had been removing cookies or anything else while Fodors was changing my password!

Actually I like your alien theory!

Once again appears some posters have centered their life around this website, to the degree that an errant email completely upsets their day. How did Fodors become so important? It's about travel, at least that's what the guidelines say. Unless this is a ruse to gain some attention? No, couldn't be that, lol.

Thank you for such an inspiring post, TravelFirst. What is your point exactly?

The point is precisely as said, that one may lose perspective by long terms online. What was experienced was no doubt a system error, one that no one else seems to have experienced. Some are even now being lured into visions of troll conspiracy. Or could it be true ... lol, now it's getting to me. The only recourse, sign off and recover.

Troll conspiracy?

Patrick, have you contacted fodors?

Great idea, there must be one editor whose job is to discover the trolls and cast them out. Lets get that person on the job ASAP! LOL, really ....!

Just received the following email from Fodors editors. I have asked them to further explain, since I am not the one who typed in &quot;forgot password&quot; and am unclear if they are saying whoever did, also passed my security question (my mother's maiden name) or if they are saying that when this other person couldn't answer the security question, they reset a new password anyway.



&quot;We read your post and wanted you to know that if someone or yourself types in your screen name and then clicks forget password, they would have to go through the security question first before the password gets reset by our system. This happened yesterday at 9:13pm.

I hope that clears things up and if you have any questions let us know.&quot;

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Sorry, this bothers you, TravelFirst, why don't you just skip over it? Oh, never mind. I just checked your other posts on Fodors, and that explains everything!

Just seems over heated, but that's typical.

Just want to be sure I'm understanding this clearly. Someone WAS able to answer your security question? If that's the case, that's really kind of scary.