# What's up with these odd Friendster messages?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 20, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452 "2006-04-20T13:39:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452/1 "2006-04-20T13:39:06Z")

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I admit that I’m not one for ‘social networking’ sites, nor am I interested in maintaining a ‘blahg’ (note the spelling–that’s exactly what it would be). However, I do have an old Friendster account which from time to time gets some random message–usually from a “female”–asking me to e-mail them at some e-mail account, typically a Yahoo or Hotmail account.

The arbitrary nature and relatively vague “out of the blue” message leads me to ask, is this some sort of way people are trying to find active e-mail accounts to spam?

“I know, let me send someone a message telling them I like their profile, and tell them to write me back at a Hotmail address! Pure GEEENYUS!” 😕

Anyone else get this?

Tripler  
I say “female” because that’s what their profile says. That may not be what they are tho. . .

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**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452/2 "2006-04-21T01:54:58Z")

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:: my one obligatory bump ::

_Anyone? Beuller . . . Beuller . . .?_

Tripler  
Maybe I’m just paranoid.

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**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452/3 "2006-04-21T02:04:38Z")

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If you email them, you’ll get the pitch, probably a paid porn site.

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**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452/4 "2006-04-21T17:53:23Z")

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Is the English really, really bad? The onslaught of Russian bride spam is getting worse on [match.com](http://match.com), and every message includes a request to write back at a Yahoo address. (As expected, [match.com](http://match.com) isn’t doing anything about it.)

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**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-odd-friendster-messages/353452/5 "2006-04-21T18:02:27Z")

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Yeah, usually it’s somebody trying to get you to go to their paid porn or webcam site or something like that.