I received an email from Yahoo Personals which says that changing your profile nicname to your given name will make other members “more likely to contact you, reply to you and want to meet you.”
I had to look at the raw source of the email to make sure it wasn’t a phishing scam. The email comes from yahoo-email.com, not yahoo.com. The jury is out about this.
After that unsettling experience, my profile provided a link to a personality test, which I had already taken. The test is titled “Yahoo Personals Premiere, but I’m not a premiere member. Sloppy oversight.
Anybody at Yahoo Personals care to clear the air? Is this a scam or not?
Update: Rochelle at Yahoo tells me it is not a scam. “You can see the new field from the profile page (look at anyone’s profile) under the “About Meâ€? section–it’s just another optional information field in the profile. ”
[tags: scam, yahoo personals]
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The best way to tell if the email is a scam is not to look at where it was sent from, but at what site it is telling you to go to make the change. If it’s not personals.yahoo.com it’s probably a scam. However, it sounds like it might be about the new “First Name” feature Yahoo just implemented.
I think that it is legitimate. Every piece of email that I’ve ever received from Yahoo Personals has come from the “yahoo-email.com” domain.
Unfortunately, all of the links in their email are URLs to the same “yahoo-email.com” domain, making it appear more scam-ish. Not only that, each URL is cookie-tracked, allowing them to know exactly who has viewed which links– a technique frequently used by spammers/scammers.
The “First Name” feature simply allows users to add their first name as just another piece of profile information. It doesn’t replace the username.
I typed my name in that Yahoo personal dating web site.. and I must tell you that I got an email from an organization called LoveHappens. I was not too careful and some how, I allowed this advertizment for having friends help you find a partner be sent to everyone who was on my email addresses. That is over 703 people. Now, I’ve had at least five men from days gone by, contact me, men I had decided to say good bye to. I’ve had girl friends write me, after many years had gone by. I was embarrassed to find out that all of my students, techers, bosses got this email advertizing that “Carol” could use your help in getting love. Yikes! My sister got the email, and lost friends over this. She thinks it is a virus of some kind. She was told by a computer technician not to do business with yahoo any more. The LoveHappens organization is in San Francisco, Ca. I have not been too happy with all of this.