John

Be aware everyone!! Spammers are definately taking email addresses off postings on this message board so if you post something right now with your correct email address on it you WILL get porn spam in your mail within 24 hours.
I know this for a fact as I got an onslaught of porn spam today that can only come from some spammer who gets email addresses off this board as I NEVER use my correct email address on Usenet, other boards nor do I have a web page or visit porn sites. The spam I got can only be from a posting I did here yesterday. I will always use a fake address from now on here and I strongly suggest everyone else does until this problem goes away.

April

Will the problem ever go away? The trouble is with using a fake address is that sometimes people want to email for more information. I use a Hotmail address here, keeping my regular email off the internet as much as possible.

Larry

You know, this is true as I have noticed spam in my email at times which is odd as I never usually get spam but now that I think of it it has always happened shortly after I have responded to a post here on this Fodors message board so I hope Fodors can think of some way for their readers not to be tons of spam from posting here as this discourages people from posting on the board.

Bonnie

You're all absolutely right. I immediately got a "porn packet" after posting on Fodor's last night!

Julie

I use a hotmail e-mail address like the above poster and have never rec'd any of this porn stuff you're speaking of . . . hope I didn't just hex myself!

Westie

You ask if the problem of spam agents getting our email addresses off this message board will go away. I think it will as this spam mail just started recently and whoever is collecting email addresses off Fodor's USA site will tire of it and move on.
I say that as I know many people already don't use correct addresses here so that spammer will get much of his mail returned by mailer dameon (or whatever that not correct automatic mail thing is called).

Auntiespam

ANother warning -- if you get SPAM and they tell you that you can unsubscribe by responding and asking them to unsubscribe you, DON'T DO IT! Instead, complain to your server (if you can, "bounce" rather than "forward" the message to the server). If you respond at all, they know they've got a "real" address and will either use it or sell it to someone else to spam you.

Bill

I am a bid fan of using yahoo for my "fake" email address. They show 50 messages at once, there is a button check and delete all 50 at once, without ever having to read them. I just deleted 187 messages yesterday. I never give out my ISP address to any internet site, otherwise it is spam city.

Kanika P. Chopra

To the forums users:

For all of you concerned with issues of privacy, our programmers have just devised a system which encodes your e-mail addresses. This should make it more difficult for spammers to get through to you.

Please keep in touch with us -- either through the forum, or by sending us emails to [email protected] if you experience any more spamming instances or problems of another sort. We'll try our best to remedy them as soon as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience you all may have undergone and hope you'll continue to visit our forums!

Sincerely,
Kanika P. Chopra Associate Producer Fodor's Travel Online