Teach Soap

Im really bummed about this. I hate that we have to be suspicious of people when we are just here to learn, share and have fun.

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ASH

Ok, that made me paranoid enough to go change my password...
My email got hijacked a few months ago, but I never even thought about anyone getting my info from a soap forum for heaven's sake!!! Thanks for the heads-up!
It's just crazy what people can do...a few months ago my brother (a hotel manager) apparently PO'd some random computer geek. My mom called his cell one day and his "ring-back" was a nauseating racist rant...absolutely horrible! When he answered, she told him to call his cell from another line and listen...he had NO IDEA that was on his phone AND he couldn't change it!! He had to call his wireless carrier to get it removed. He got a call the same day from a restricted number from a guy who said he would remove the ring-back for a fee, and told him he got his cell # from his business card in the hotel lobby and hacked into his phone...my brother called the police, but they said they couldn't do anything about it...just crazy!!

S**t ! I actually use my real name. I guess I never saw any danger here. Now I guess I understand why you all use nicknames.

Thanks again to everyone who wrote in above.

I didn't sign my original posts on this forum - not even with my first name. But then I started feeling more comfortable and started signing with my real first name (which may still be okay to do, I don't know). But the real problem started when I (stupidly) gave out my address because someone offered to send me a hard-to-find soap item. Then the person commented that they had 'looked my town up on a map, and it looked like a nice area'. Then I started getting odd PMs from this person as well as another person, who I suspect was actually the same person using a different identity. When I began questioning certain aspects of this person's story, that's when I got slammed with the bizarre, unsigned email to my personal email address accusing me of all kinds of ridiculous, senseless stuff.

The worst thing about this is now I'm a little suspicious of other people who contact me because I don't know if it is yet another incarnation of this same person.

Anne-Marie PM'd me and is going to be calling me about this today. When I talk to her, or if she reads this post first, I'm going to ask her if the forum administrators are able to tell if someone at any given IP address has signed up with more than one user name. If so, maybe that's something they can look at preventing in the future.

That's super creepy. I hope this gets figured out, I'd hate for people to leave such a great forum just because of a couple weirdos.

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Please visit my blog

Hi Team,

We're definitely looking into this. As with all situations, there are many angles to research and my team and I are sitting down this afternoon to discuss the concerns that have been posted here. I want to make it 100% clear that no personal information is collected from us at the Teach Soap Forum. When you sign up, you give us your email address, your desired user ID and that is *it*. We do not have your home addresses. We do not have your social security numbers. We only get the bare amount of information that we request when you sign up. In this specific case, much of this took place via private emails between the parties involved - outside of the Teach Soap forum.

As all of this is still developing, and still unsubstantiated, I am going to lock this thread down. I will unlock it to post a resolution within in the next three days (though it is my sincere hope to have this resolved by this evening).

As a very general rule, the internet is filled with veritable strangers. We are all brought together by our love of soap here on this site and a genuine desire to help and have good camaraderie but the internet does have tracks, everywhere you go, every site you go to, every Facebook photo tagged of you - much of it is searchable to anyone with a small amount of programming savvy so this is a good reminder to us all to (1) never click on any links that supposedly come from PayPal or a Bank to our personal email boxes (2) never give out our social security number to any site on the 'net unless we are 100% certain it is the site we are hoping to be on (3) change your passwords routinely and try to make them "safe" by including capitals, letters, numbers, and a non letter/number (like #&!^#*).

We'll get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, happy soaping!

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

Hi Team,

Thanks for hanging in there as we sorted all of this out. To address the specific situation that is referenced in the first post:

(1) After investigating as best as we were able, we have taken immediate action and banned the users in question.
(2) Midnightstorm's user ID is no longer active. She has been given the option of signing up again under a new user ID.

I do want to stress that Teach Soap (neither the owners nor the administrators nor the moderators) have any access to your personal information besides what you give us when you sign up (a valid email address and any optional information, such as website , hobbies etc…). The incident referred to unfortunately happened outside of this forum’s public message board purview – in private message boxes and emails. Teach Soap is not responsible for what goes on in private conversations in private messages or off the forum in private email boxes. As a basic rule of thumb for navigating the web, don’t give people you don’t know your home address or phone number. Make your Facebook profile private. Most people are nice, friendly, hard working people … but unfortunately, a few bad apples ruin it for all of us.

Here are a few general tips and tricks for navigating the Teach Soap forum and any online community including Facebook and Twitter:

• Most of the time it’s best to use an alias or just your first name. If you own a business, using your business name is a great idea. Linking to your e-commerce website or Etsy store is a good idea from a marketing standpoint.

• When signing up on the Teach Soap forum, you are only required to provide your email address and an alias. In general, it’s best to only include the bare minimum of information. You can always share more details privately with friends you make when you feel comfortable and safe enough to do so. Even your email address on Teach Soap will never be shared with anyone unless you give it out or grant permission to view it.

• To see your privacy permissions click the ‘User Control Panel’ link in the upper right. Then click on ‘Board Preferences’ on the left and view ‘Edit Global Settings’ here you can decide whether users or administrators can email you. As well as whether or not you want other users to be able to send you private messages.

• If you decide to share more information in your profile be aware that anyone can see it without your permission. So make sure you only share info you would share with any random person that would walk up to you on the street. Many people like to keep the names of their loved ones private in discussions which is why short-hand like DH (dear husband) is so popular. There’s no need to be specific about exactly where you live or work and you should be suspicious of anyone who seems insistent on getting that information from you.

Here are few additional resources on general online safety:

http://www.chatdanger.com/chat/safetyadvice.aspx

http://www.wiredsafety.org/safety/chat_ ... index.html

http://www.wiredsafety.org/internet101/netiquette.html

Thank you for your patience as we sorted this all out. I hope that now we are all able to get back to what we love to do – soaping and talking about our projects.

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com