Great Western Coffee Shop

I've received the following email, supposedly connected with the thread about Crossrail on this forum. Seems like total spam to me. Has anyone else received it? And more importantly, how did "Claire Robertson" get my email address from the forum?

I have a clue and am looking into it.   I do NOT believe it is a general problem, but will be following up as a matter of some priority.

There's a setting in every user's profile "Hide email address from public" which is switched on by the vast majority of users, but some have it off.   I am pretty sure that in this case reported, the email address is available via that route.

There is a check box on the registration page "Hide email address from public" - an option which has always been available on the forum - which is how the setting is initially made.   If you want to change it later, log in and it's under "Profile" and under "Account related settings" from there.  That will not alter history - in other words, if someone has already copied your email address, chaining the setting now won't undo that.

Thanks. I'm not sure why I had not ticked that box, but I've ticked it now.

Partly by way of giving this guidance something of a 'bump', I'm replying here now.

I have also received such very occasional 'dubious' e-mails.  I just ignore them, simply marking them as spam.

My e-mail address was / is / will be visible to readers of the Coffee Shop forum - my decision.

Just as a further follow up to this - whether you have your email address displayed publicly or not, please make sure it is up to date.

It will ensure you can get a password reminder if you ever forget it while for us behind the scenes it can be helpful if we ever need to get hold of you.

I get some of these connected to my business, one being the exact same email - like renting out a thatched cottage in rural Devon for a few weeks every year is likely to be enhanced by a link-up with an American tech company. Like CfN, I simply ignore them. Answering merely confirms that the email account is active, and invites further spam.


Though I trust the Coffee shop absolutely, I don't use my primary email account for social media of any sort.


Yes, well, I don't have many other hobbies these days.