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This is the problem I wrote about in message #???#34795???(Nov 3) under the subject line "People are asking me to remove them from my group....but they are not members!".
Since then I have received one or two complaints a day from non-members who have somehow been sent messages from my neighborhood discussion forum. I always write back and explain that I don't know how they are getting messages, that they are NOT subscribed to my group, and I'm very sorry this has happened. Then I tell them I would like to get to the bottom of it, and I ask them to forward to me any message they've received from my group. So far I've been sent six or seven messages by these non-members. It's always some random thing -- a group member posting a recommendation for a contractor, or someone giving away a rug -- that kind of normal, everyday message that my listserv runs all day long. The sender of the message in question is always a neighbor, a reliable poster -- not someone who would be forwarding messages to non-members to do some sort of mischief. So that's a dead end. Also, twice the message that the person has chosen to forward to me comes not from my group, but from some OTHER group at Groups.io. One time the message came from an electrical engineering group. The other time it came from a cat group. I wrote back to the person in each case and let them know they need to alert the group owner of that group. Actually, I don't see how the group owner of any other group could know what's going on either. But at least it's clear to me that some hacker or mischief-maker isn't targeting my group specifically; this appears to be a problem affecting many groups throughout Groups.io. The only clear connection I see in all these cases is that the non-member who is receiving the unwanted messages from Groups.io always has an AOL.com email address. I'm getting more and more frustrated as this problem continues. Tom, if you have made any headway in figuring out what's going on -- or if any other group owners have any insight -- please share! -Peggy Robin Owner, ClevelandPark - a Washington, DC neighborhood discussion group |
