DO NOT do the above for any online message board (forum or community). I not so recently joined an online community concerning web hosting as I had a really bad experience with a provider. I am not talking about a small mishap. I mean the provider was so bad that when I wrote about them they even terminated my account. No one really questioned my bad experience as much as they question my good experience. Being relieved that I finally found a web host who appears to be doing great I followed up with a positive review. OMG! You'd think I had stolen someone's firstborn child. Because the amount of hate I got for writing a positive review was unexpected. But that is not what surprised me the most. Now, this particular forum (not here) is demanding I submit my full name, address, and phone number. Seriously?! I have never joined an online community that demanded that I show proof of who I am. So we have gone from people acting as if I had stolen someone's firstborn child, to acting as if I wanted to adopt one. Well, because I dare question them, now they want a copy of our driver's license too. All this because I dare join an online message board and write a review. I told them they could delete my account for all I care. What I find troubling is they "claim" people are OK with complying with this "standard" request. Like, seriously?! This has ID Theft written all over it. It is not as if I am purchasing any product or services from them either. All I did was join a forum and post a review.
Reading this reminds me of a big mistake I made a long time ago. Back in the 90's, I made a small donation, $50 if I remember correctly, to the Suffolk County Police Athletic League. Within about 2 weeks, I got another mailer asking for another donation. so I gave them $25. Well, the next thing I know, my mailbox is filled with requests from police departments from all over the country, all asking for donations. I ignored all of them. Obviously, they share their list of donors with other departments. But then the real problem began. Someone must have gotten my name and address from the Suffolk County PAL's list of donors, and used the white pages to find my number. And so the phone calls began. Police departments called me from upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and so on. One even called from as far away as Nevada. All begging for money, to which I politely said no, explaining that I only support my local PAL. Most of them accepted that, but then came the day when I got a call from a department in Dayton, Ohio. After going through the same explanation with him, he actually got a little upset with met me, accusing me of "not liking the police" and "having a bad attitude". So I replied, "Look, let's be honest here. If I get into a car accident, are you going to show up and help me? No. If someone breaks into my house at 3 AM and I call the police, are you the going to be the one who shows up at my door? No. The truth is, you've never done anything at all to help me, and you never will, so why should I give you anything?". He went totally ballistic at that point, actually cursing me out. I simply hung up on him. Looking back on it, it was probably not an actual police officer who called, but probably some civilian hired by them to make calls. At least I hope so. After that happened, I called the Suffolk County PAL, explained what had happened, and requested that they remove me from their list of donors. I've never donated since then. The final result was I eventually had to change my phone number, which I had for over twenty years. All because of my own generosity. Never again.
I did that once with the Red Cross and now they are hounding me on the phone and in my mail. Makes me sorry I ever did anything for them. Why can't a person donate without being harassed afterwords? BTW: I never give anything to anybody over the phone if they call me, You can not tell who they really are or where they are from, and I tell them that... Just don't do phone solicitations ever!
@John Sutherland I know what you've gone through. A couple of years ago I gaved away some computer components on Freecycle, a donation-driven community. I never gave my phone number on that board but immediately after the announcement was made I received lots of phone calls from people begging for stuff. At that time, I had some job boards that displayed my information, including my phone number. Freecycle being a Yahoo board, uses shared login with Yahoo. My real name was displayed, with the name they found my phone. I had to change my phone number, obviously but I learned that 1) you never give an public information about yourself and 2) be very careful who/where you are giving stuff away. You need to be very careful when dealing with the public. And this is what bugs me the most: I want to do some good but cannot without beeing harassed. @GOD666 I never do that. All my accounts have randomized usernames, passwords, and for those accounts that require address and stuff I use randomizers for them as well.
@John Sutherland There is a whole scam circle surrounding the donation of police and fire departments. Let me clue you in. Your police department and the fire department is both federally, state, and locally funded. They're not banging on people's door or calling them all up during the night and they are not hiring people to do the dirty work for them either. Same here. I know better not to do as they requested. I can almost see why they wanted a copy of the invoice as proof that I was a customer, as opposed to a host making a fake review. But when they wanted my address, phone, and photo ID... I basically told them to go "F" themselves. The site in question is well known too concerning 'web hosting talk'. We really surprised by them.
Indeed never give out any personal information. The name I use, is the name I use on all boards / forums I'm member of, same for my gmail email account. My private email account is for .... private stuff. No other information is ever provided ... has always been so and so it will remain. Call me rude but I ignore people I don't personally know that are fishing for any personal/private information. Just my 2 cents ...
once you submit your information your name goes on a list and is sold that's why once you donate you get all these other calls and some of them try to make you feel bad and badger you for not donating to them, that's why when we donate we drop off used clothing or housewares ! and when you donate online how do you do it, do you give them your credit card info , mail a check ? if you do then they not only have your name and address but your credit info also . when we go on vacation we stay at a nice hotel and as usual when we return we get calls from places giving us deals to stay at there hotels after a while 60-70 % of your home and cell phone calls are robo calls calls looking for donations credit card people, people selling storm windows. its getting annoying and its getting worse !
If i deal with a small company, Company Y, i expect my details to stay private because small companies just do not have clout. Large company Z will have lobbyists out the wazoo and have bent governments to their own will, all this "And Affiliates" nonsense. An Affiliate being any corporate entity willing to give Company Z large wodges of cash for your info and they word the "Agreements" so that you have to agree to use their service or buy their products. If you do not agree you have to go elsewhere and elsewhere will do exactly the same thing. One way or another they have got you by the short and curlies.
Tell them they're not thorough enough. They should have also asked the number and password of your bank account.
Thats partly why i dont like direct debits cos once they have their mitts in you bank account you cannot cancel it, they have to. But you get a "discount" by doing direct debit. I recently wanted to change a utility to a quarterly bill but they said it would be £99 extra a year. Guess what my answer was.
you can buy a homeless guy a bottle of beer and ask him for a selfie unless they ask you to video chat, then pay buy him another bottle and ask him to video chat on your behalf. simple. problem solved. lock this thread. corruption and simple plain pathetic white lies are/is the only solution to these kinds of problems. period.