I know I might be teaching your grandmother to suck eggs but just a gentle reminder not to arrange meeting through personal messages by people you really don't know. I am talking about looking at their profile and realising that they only joined today, not long standing friendships that have been forged through months of chatting, encouragement and friendship.
I have just had one such message asking me to email them and meet up because they thought I sounded nice through my profile and they only joined the site today.
Happy running to all.
Written by
Realfoodieclub
Graduate
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Me too! I've had the same message and immediately deleted it. Then thought perhaps I should have reported it to the community administrator. This kind of blatent preying on people really irritates me. Well done for posting, wise words indeed.
It might not be 'preying' on someone - could be poor social skills.
I must say that this forum is refreshingly free of a lot of the rubbish you get elsewhere - whether that's spam or overly needy or downright dodgy attempts at 'finding a friend'. I think this may be because it is based firmly on a particular programme, an NHS programme, and in a sense you earn your membership here by getting out there and running - just talking about it only gets you so far here, for all that we know folk have lots of barriers to overcome (and might encounter some difficulties that take them out of it for quite a while)
I don't think my profile says anything so I don't sound nice (doesn't have the right date for me signing up either)
I totally agree with you which is why I always enter into a conversation by personal message with someone who has any problems with site etiquette and try and help. This one didn't come across that way at all, so it made me very wary and the fact that so many seem to of had the same message is more like a computer is sending these out.
I take your point GoogleMe, and I don't use the word 'preying' lightly but this was clearly a spamming message - I often get the same ones on Skype and at one point had to disable my account for a few weeks - which makes it interesting as I use it communicate with my family all the time as we aren't UK based. My mum has also been targeted by people like this, which adds fuel to my fire, when they target the elderly albeit indiscriminately. And you are right, this forum is free of that kind of rubbish, which is why it grates me even more to see someone trying to infiltrate.
Yes I received the same message as well. Wasn't sure where to report it, so thanks for highlighting.
Pfft - now I feel rejected, because even a spammer doesn't fancy me!
Seriously, though, Rfc, thank you for this and your other post. It can be hard sometimes to distinguish but I agree with what you and others have said - when you've built up a 'relationship' with someone or at least seen them on the group or the C25K FB pages, you know they are real. We've had quite a few meet-ups within the group and people have made proper friendships, which is fab. I met up with someone local for the tail-end of their mammoth run, which was brilliant, and I hope that I will be meeting someone else in a different country next month - but these are members who have been posting for a long time now. Thanks for being willing to step in on our behalf.
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xxx
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