I believe I've been caught...

[Highmac]

We'd been trying to sell an item on Gumtree and hadn't had a sniff, so deleted, rewrote and resubmitted. We've always prided ourselves as being pretty savvy when it comes to online safety, but this is a good example of how easily you can be caught out in the heat of the moment.

Yesterday, coming back from shopping, the missus got a text saying we had a reply to our advert and giving a URL to read it. Hooray - at last we've got a response! In retrospect, that was the first clue we missed - why did we need a url to log in to Gumtree?       But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Got home, fed URL into the Mac and got a window asking us to log in with email address - but, thankfully, it didn't want password, and after entering email addy, there was no button to click except the one inviting us to log in.

After a few frustrating minutes trying to work out where to go from there, the truth dawned on us.

So the (*several adjectives and expletives deleted*) now have her mobile number and my email, and we're just waiting for the truckload of spam to hit.

Remember - you never be TOO alert!

[Xairbusdriver]

Tsk, tsk! That's never happened to me! I'n too smart... wait, I just got a message about winning something...

Actually, congrats on a good catch!

"Gumtree" sounds like a British (European?) version of "Craigslist". Our version has become a great way to entrap people, physically as well as virtually! "Social engineering" is just so wide-spread, and I fear that younger generations simply have no understanding of what all the personal info they so easily give up will come back to haunt them. My youngest GD graduated from HS this week and has already received an "invitation" from a company for "Summertime employment". The tipoff to me was the postage on the letter; nothing of value come with a 26¢ stamp (half of the standard, first class rate, in the US). My 18yo GD is already on lists with her full residence and age data, no doubt also her sex, marital status, driving history, and much, much more. Don't tell her, but we've been throwing away credit card 'enticements' for years!

As for 'losing' an email addy, that's likely easily and 99.9% controlled by SPAMsieve.