HenRah

I tried to register several times over the last few weeks, because I want to engage with the community about vinyl, and I keep getting the same notice:

"Sorry, but we are not accepting new registrations at this time"

How is the forum supposed to work now?

There is no explanation as to why its closed. No indication of how long this is going to take to resolve, or whether it will open again. No way to contact the owners of the site (contact page is just a bunch of FAQs and there is no info there about the closure).

I did a search of the forum and there is little or no information about any issues with registration apart from Austria (I am not in Austria). I looked at the News section and there is no info there either.

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I had never heard of this website until I started receiving emails with subject headers like"New contact requests" and "Your profile is very popular". They made it look like I had created an account and was interacting with the site (i.e. I had messages from other users).

I thought it was harmless spam and ignored it, but my partner saw it and was really shocked and upset. Not because of the content (some of which is not exactly our cup of tea) but because it purports to be a dating site.

Let me be clear, this is NOT a dating site. It's a scam porn site with aggressive sign-up tactics masquerading as a dating site to hook people in. This is not harmless spam, it goes against the basic rules of the internet and can lead to unintended consequences, even if you never interact with it.

You can't prove a negative, but in order to "prove" to my partner that it wasn't my account, we had to log in using the account details that were automatically created for me and have a look around this god-awful site to show the absence of any genuine interaction.

Not only did it suggest that my profile was halfway completed, but it also populated my "preferences" with a load of stuff I am definitely not into. This worried my partner even more, as she is not a granny, and cannot accommodate my fist by any stretch.

We finally sorted it out when it became apparent that all of the messages I had received were not instigated by me, were unanswered and unread, and that it looked like my account was based in New Zealand, not the UK. In short, there was no evidence of genuine interaction, but the journey to get there was harrowing.

Fair enough if some people are happy to pay to chat to bots, and if a website wants to claim its a dating site, maybe that’s true if you want to date a robot and pay for the privilege. But don’t sign me up without my consent, don’t make it look like my profile is partway complete when all you have is my email address, and definitely don’t start filling in my preferences and emailing me about it.

This kind of activity can cause real damage to people’s lives. Luckily I only wasted an evening of my life sorting this out, but for some people it could be disastrous for their relationship. Please stop.

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