General Chat

yuk yuk :-D

I remember him Ann....he pretended to be all innocent and friendly. I was taken in until the pm's started *shudders*

:-| :-P

I recall not long after I came on the Chat Board I had to ask GR to block a male member from contacting me - think he came from Liverpool - he upset a lot of people and I think he was eventually thown off the site - they did block him however, so why can they no longer do that?

I've had an unwanted pm, from the creepy person who seems to look up where people live, and say the name of where that is on the boards, will say things like "isn't so and so a great place" or "I want to visit a so and so place, what is there to do there" Thing is the place where they want to visit has sweet fanny adams going on there, you'd pass through it without knowing you had.

They seem to think by doing this, you will quiver in your boots, I asked my my Policeman friend, what these types do it for, he said they've probably got a sad life,and want to appear important, when they're not, he's right of course.

The pm I got from this member I have never opened, never wondered what they wrote, as i know it would have been a load of old cobblers :-D

GR have been having some type of computer glitch...or so they told me, said they were looking into it, that was some time ago..........

Everyone has a different story to tell on this and no matter what happens the only ones who know the truth are the ones that are involved............


No matter how, who and when it happens on the internet and it can come from anyone known or unknown......



:-| :-| :-|

Wise words about safety on the internet:
Have your wits about you.



Nearly seven years ago, similar advice was given, and it applies still today in my opinion:
http://www.genesreunited.co.za/boards/board/genealogy_chat/thread/966721
Internet Safety

Sirius..............a reasonable person would :-D

Sylvia.....I thought GR could do something, glad it was sorted in your case. :-D

it was the policy of GR that they would block someone from pm'ing you if you showed them that harassment was occurring, and they would also tell the other person not to make any contact.


In my case, the other person had passed on wrong rather scurrilous information to another member of GR, who knew me and knew the information was wrong and so let me know about it.

It was pure vindictiveness because the person thought I had been responsible for posts being RR'd ................ quite wrong!

I complained to GR


He was told that he had to stop passing on information AND to no longer make any attempt to contact me or else he would be banned from GR.


I did not however take up the suggestion that GR would block his posts .............. I thought he might have had enough of a scare!


and that was true!!



This happened about 3 years ago



He has since sent me pms on about 3 other occasions, very apologetically saying he knows I don't want any communication with him, but raising a valid point about something on a thread that was better raised in a pm than in the open.




However, I think that what GR said to him at that point has a valid point ................. I do know that certain people spread scurrilous rumours about other members by pm because I have received some of them .............



you know the kind .....................


"have you heard that xxxxxxxx has ........................."




We ALL know, or should know, what can be found very easily on the internet ......... much of it quite legally, but also a lot that we really would not like to be out there!



Ever tried googling your own name (or names)?




My daughter has an unusual forename. She and I googled that name about 5 years ago to see how many people might be on the internet with it


Not very many in the western world ............................... but there were about 100 sites with that forename prominently displayed.

ALL featured little Filipino girls offering various services :-0



fortunately, those seem to have disappeared now :-)

Kitty I would hope that anyone who was asked not to PM would honour that .

But if you have asked for the person not to send you Pm's and they still do, just seeing them appear would be highly annoying or maybe unsettling to some members.

I wouldn't continue if asked not to, it all seems a bit creepy to me...............but hey ho :-)

I would imagine GRs stance is that you can just delete PMs unread from people you don't want to speak to?

( PS however I have to admit curiosity would probably get the better of me if I received a PM from one or two people lol) .

If J and others have been banned for harassment on the boards, why can't GR ban for harassment by PM ?

Very odd behavior to pester by PM :-S

I'm sure it must have been upsetting Mersey, I don't know the circumstances obviously. I was just pointing out how easy it has become to find out private details of people via the internet....not implying that this was the case for your sister.

I actually thought GR had sorted this out !! All I was told to do was ignore which is easier said than done....but lets see what happens about that, hopefully GR are reading this as well

and people can get harassed on this site too with unwanted messages which ridiculously GR are unable to stop - they used to be able to block fellow members from contacting you by message, but no longer it seems - what a poor site this is regarding proection of paying members

Firstly Sirius my sister case she is not on facebook and when an email is received telling that this is going on.....it can be and is a very upsetting time....

EDIT:- Apologies I have been asked to remove some of this post.....

I was angry have to say, but my sister was fuming !! Anyways being dealt with now, sis did tell me what type of law policy it was but I have forgotten now......Like she said no one has that right , no matter who they are and what they are...... :-0

But that is what many people do on here, the 'find living relatives' board is full of people looking up on FB etc, I've just done it myself. In order to try and locate someone I worked through details of their siblings etc and now know more than I really want to lol.

You might say it depends on the motive for checking someone out? ....but it is still uncomfortable really , to be 'prying' even though all the info is in the public domain, most of it posted by the persons themselves. Checking people out is something that is done everyday by companies and you only have to look at the way google ads work to be aware that really nothing you search for or say online is entirely 'private'.

That's sick Mersey............but don't get scared, get angry <3

EDIT :- I have had to remove this post regarding Sister....apologies