[smr67]

I had a really creepy thing happen to me today where someone connected my email to my forum name and I have never publically given my email and have been selective in giving it privately...PM if you want details of who to watch out for...

[tookie12]

Please contact the administrators and let them know as well

[smr67]

I already did...

[smr67]

I guess I need to clarify a little. I sent an email to a person publically involved in adoptions that I had never previously corresponded with to ask a question and in their response they referenced info about me that I never told them in the email...

[foxl]

EEEEwwwwww!

[crick]

Please respond to my pm. If there is action needed, I may be able to help. Brandy is off line right now and still catching up from vacation.

Thanks!
Crick

[jaymo]

please pm me and let me know who to look out for as I amnew to the forum (relatively) and still learning how this works.

Thanks!!
Maura.

[jerryscuba]

Well, you may have given this information privately to one of your forum friends. I know from my own experience that some of the people who PM are trolls who are not who they claim to be.
Sometimes just posting the timeline here may be enough information to find out who you are (especially for your agency).
And quite frankly Suzanne is not that common of a name. I could see that somebody who follows this board could pretty easily connect your name with the screen name.
I hope the issue was not too serious...
Ralf

[Babybmine]

Are you kidding me? This is happening again? This happened about a year ago to another forum member who ultimately stopped "checking in" here. This is just terrible. I hope that something is done to stop this.
Carla

[BebitosMama]

Originally Posted by jerryscuba

Well, you may have given this information privately to one of your forum friends. I know from my own experience that some of the people who PM are trolls who are not who they claim to be.

Yup...Ralf brings up a good point. Some of the folks on the forum are agency staffers who don't identify themselves. (Trolls.) Some are current or former agency clients who are very devoted, and feel it's somehow their duty to forward other people's negative posts and information to their agencies. (Moles.)

Be careful about what you tell folks in PMs until you know for sure for sure that they're not a troll or mole, and be very careful about what you post on the forum if you have an agency that might give you trouble if they don't like what you're sharing on the forum*, and they can identify you. If you use a login name similar to your own name/baby's name/email address, if you use your real first name or last name, post a date-specific timeline, or include photos of yourself, or use as your email address in the system your actual email that you use with the agency, they can quickly put 2 and 2 together.

Mary

*Some agencies actually have in their contract that you are not permitted to share anything in public that is negative about that agency by name -- including your own truthful negative experiences, and these agencies are notorious for trolling to see what their clients are saying...

[AwaitingBeloved]

Holy crap! that's nuts!

[BrandyHagz]

I wanted to address this issue publicly, as we tend to go through this every few months.

First, what you have to understand is that these forums are public. Any and everything that you post here show’s up for any and everyone (regardless of membership) to read.

Second, if you’re a member of other groups/forums where you use your email address to correspond (like the biglist and Yahoo groups) then its very easy for your email address to be known, especially if you’ve shared your Adoption.com user name in those places.

Its important to remember that posting anything personal to the Internet is a risk. You might be careful about what you post, but if you post it to many different places and you use the same user name – it’s not really hard to piece together the puzzle.

I posted a post last year that might be of interest to some of you: Internet Safety for Adults

I wish there were more we could do…but the fact is, the forums aren’t a private group and anyone on the Internet, member or not, can read any and everything posted here. All we can do at this point is remind folks that sharing information is a risk. It’s not just sharing here that is a problem…but sharing anywhere.

[AwaitingBeloved]

Thank you, Brandy, it is helpful to see that thread.

[Bassette]

Suzanne, I think your post is still a little confusing so correct me if I am wrong but it goes a little something like this,......

Suzanne emailed an agency, initial contact, and they replied with personal information that was likely obtained from her posts or signature here on AF. Is that right?

This is not a situation unique to adoption.com. It happens on any public forum or chatroom. If you look at any thread you will see there are waaaaay more views than replies. Sometimes I read posts and don't reply but I have always kept in mind that there are lurkers and emotional vampires on these and any public forum. There have always been incidents of agencies receiving information from posts and I tend to think the agencies read the forums themselves, although I'm sure there are busy body clients that have nothing better to do than to *try* and cause problems for other people for a transient moment of satisfaction or momentary distraction from their own misery. Inappropriate agency activity makes it important for adoptive families to stick around and share experiences so that those stinkers are run out of business by former clients who were victimized by their antics. One of the absolute worst agencies/facilitators I have ever heard of (oh she was rotten) is now effectively out of business thanks to former clients sharing their experiences.

I do think it wrong when they use specific posts against their clients, no doubt about that, but in general it is a good idea for agencies to read the forum and keep up with the latest issues that upset adoptive families. They need to know that we freak out over random rumors, uncertainties of proposed laws, cry cry cry when we gon't get updates or medical info forwarded etc, etc. It would hopefully make then more attentive to our needs.

Something else to keep in mind is that adoptees and birthmothers read these forums so consider that when you are choosing your words to post. They may not post here but they sure do read, develop feelings based one our comments, form opinions and utilize the reputation function to send messages that they don't feel comfortable posting. Honestly I wish they felt more welcomed to post as I feel that I have become a better AMom since branching out and reading the adoptee and birthmother forums. This is a public forum and many many folks read our posts that are not even considering guatemalan adoption. Reporters, students doing papers, agencies of course, birthmothers, adoptees, peeps from other country programs, emotional vampires working on their next lie, advertising professionals, writers, those who stumbled in here accidently via a search engine etc.

Please,...let's talk about this if anyone has any questions or concerns. I don't want anyone to feel spooked because this place, I assure you, is safer than most public forums as we have very attentive moderators.