Dear Expat-ters,
I'm a friendly gal - born & bred in England, living a simple peaceful life enjoying my days.
Expat.com has opened my 👀 to all manor of issues through out the world and for that I am grateful. New acquaintances have come and gone but I'm finding that I am receiving more and more unsolicited private messages. These individuals aren't contacts, they are random individuals who are, to be honest, creepy.
Is there any way that I can restrict strangers from contacting me? Is there any way that I can set up a 'security guard' which allows only my authorised / existing contacts to private message me?
I have previously reported individuals for content in pm and they have been dealt with immediately, and for that I applaud Expat Experts and thank you for your attention to the expat family members (sorry if I have made us sound like a cult, lol).
I know that Expat.com take the safety of individuals very seriously and I do feel extremely safe using this site - but as always there are the few ignorant, selfish people who are trying to exploit the good nature of 'our' group and I don't want to report/block every person who contacts me - I just want to restrict the number of them. I do block them, but to be honest - I would rather not receive them in the first place.
Is this something that Expat.com design team could look into please?
OR
Is there already something in place that I have missed?
Thank you for your time reading my concerns - I hope I haven't offended anyone as that wasn't my intention, I'm just fed up getting one-liners from uninvited, creepy, "no profile info", individuals.
Chuckle Butty
Nuisance Private Messages
You just have to accept it as part of life. Like junk mail for instance. No matter what I do, I still have to put up with it on a daily basis:
Still hasn't stopped them. I just keep binning it. Do the same - report/block/delete away. Only way to stop it is tape my letter-box shut. You can disable your PM-system, but like the former, it's not a solution.
Thank you XB23,
I thought as much...........but I wasn't aware of the option to disable the pm option. I'll look into it 😊
Thank you
CB
Awww like the PM feature but I'm with you it does get a bit to much. Maybe it should be only if your friends with the person you can accept PM's?
Hi again CB,
How are you doing my dear? It's been a while since we last chatted.
Unfortunately, you have just described one of the biggest problems faced by our female members. Unsolicited and annoying private messages. Equally unfortunate is the fact that you have only two options.
The first option is what I recommend to all of our female members, one which helps all of our other female members too. REPORT the message by clicking on the ACTIONS button next to the "Conversation with ......" line and then on REPORT. This will send a copy of the offending message to a member of our Moderators Team and it will be swiftly dealt with. Unfortunately, since it is, after all, private; nobody sees your messages unless you report one. So they're not screened in any way. Reporting offenders will result in severe consequences up to, and including, cancellation of the offender's account. Ultimately this helps all of our female members since it gets rid of the offenders. Some of our female members choose only to BLOCK further messages from the offender, however this does nothing to help resolve the probem once and for all like REPORT does.
Reports are 100% anonymous so you don't need to worry about that. It would be virtually impossible that an offender could even guess who reported them, since most of these creeps are sending out the same kind of messages to multiple female members.
The only other option, which essentially punishes the victim is to deactivate your Private Messages altogether, then you've lost the one of the great benefits that membership provides. Obviously this is not something I would recommend.
So remember......... REPORT, REPORT and after you've REPORTED if you choose to BLOCK, feel free to do so, but make sure not to do that before you REPORT.
Cheers,
James
Expat-blog Experts TEam
Good morning James,
Good to hear from you and thank you for your comments.
I understand about reporting these annoying pests - however I feel really stupid reporting a guy for saying, " Hello, my name is xxxxx".
I have reported some of the messengers like the one who wanted to know if I would marry his friend, and the one who asked if I had any girlfriends who wanted boyfriends, the one who swore regularly and the one who was just plain creepy to mention just a few - but I feel like I'm being oversensitive. On the other hand, it's obviously getting to me for me to have started this thread.......hmmmm.
I really don't want to be labelled as the woman who reports everyone, and I certainly don't want to be a pain in ass of the experts who have to deal with the reports. It's a real predicament.
Maybe it would be an idea for a blanket message could be sent to the female members reminding them that reporting these unwanted messengers is a responsibility, that they all have a duty of care for fellow members?
And guess what James.......i disabled my PM function and you are right!!!! Why should I be the one who loses out?
Let battle commence..............⚠
CB
XB23 wrote:You just have to accept it as part of life. .
No, you don't.
There's a report button in 'actions'
Use that and the offender will get a ban.
chuckle_butty wrote:I really don't want to be labelled as the woman who reports everyone
Don't worry - you're doing everyone a favour when you help to team weed out and ban a creep.
Go for it.
Hi CB,
I'll send you a PM with some information, that shouldn't be public knowledge. I'm sure it will make you feel a bit better.
Cheers,
James Expat-blog Experts Team
Fred wrote:XB23 wrote:You just have to accept it as part of life. .
No, you don't.
There's a report button in 'actions'
Use that and the offender will get a ban.
Yes you do have to accept it (if you live in a first world country, as most of these messages, which I've received as well, tend to originate from those living in the 3rd world looking for a way out or whatever). Report button is only temporarily relief, before someone else inevitably replaces them. Deal with one, another comes along. Look at how many banned members there are, which their number only continues to increase. It hasn't stopped them returning or others replacing them. Part & parcel of being a member on a social website from a desired location. Or you can block all msg's which isn't a solution. With other options to prevent unwanted msgs, there are still ways for people to circumvent them. She wouldn't be making a thread if it was just one or two people contacting her. It's a bit like going to a third world country. You get rid of an unwanted chancer, before someone else comes along and tries it on. You either accept it and try to live with it, or spend your time frustratingly reporting them. I've accepted it on here because most are just looking for opportunities to better their lives, and they mistakenly seem to have the belief that we can somehow help them out. Plus some of the blame is on those foolish enough to travel there, get married, after a brief online relationship. It's led to others to think they have a chance as well if they befriend people online. The number of times I've received messages, with nothing other than add me on skype/whatsapp as the introduction, I naturally react angrily thinking who are they playing at, then I realize it's worked for others so they think it will too for them. It's not just the female members receiving unwanted msgs. We do too. But I accept it's creepier when it's from men.
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