Received a Friend request from a stranger

[cyneli]

Today I got an email, supposedly from someone named Earline L.  I don't know this person but the email had a link I was told to click to accept a friend request from Earline.  I don't know Earline and am not interested in Fitbit as social media.  So I thought I'd reply to the email, but the address is:  "Earline L." <messages-noreply@fitbit.com>

   The "no-reply" portion makes me think that my reply will go straight to a trash can.  E-mails that I can't reply to are spam.  I suspect that there is no Earline L, but if there is, how does she even know that I exist and own a Fitbit?  I thought I had privacy settings to prevent this sort of thing.   

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Odyssey13]

You did the right thing @cyneli  in ignoring it, if you don't want to make friends. Usually when I get one of those, I click "view profile" of the person asking to be friends. That way, I see who they are before accepting or declining the request. You can't respond to those emails anyway. Glad you're staying safe!

[cyneli]

There was no option to view the profile, just one button to accept the request.  I did get a repeat of the email with a different name on it.  How are these people seeing me at all, to be able to send these?  I can filter them to my spam folder but am just wondering why this happened at all.  

[SilviaFitbit]

@cyneli A warm welcome to the Fitbit Community. Thank you for getting in touch about this. 

Fitbit users could add you from their contacts, Facebook, email or by username. The email you received is a notification letting you know that you got a new friend request, you could check the profile by clicking on the image. Usually, the title of these emails are "Help me become more fit on Fitbit.com" 

If you don't wish to add this person just ignore the email. 

@Odyssey13 Thank you for your assistance in this thread. 

I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[cyneli]

I have gotten two of these emails, and neither are in my contacts or Facebook friends.  But why would those people know that I even own a fitbit?  I haven't mentioned it to anyone.  Is there a way to turn off the ability for people to send friend requests?  I suppose just signing up to use this community board opens me up to more of the same, right?  How do I set up privacy features to stop this?   

[SilviaFitbit]

@cyneli Thank you for getting back.

For example, people could add you using your Community profile because it shows that you have a Fitbit account. 

At the moment it's not possible to turn off friend requests however, you could vote for this idea Turn off Friend Requests to avoid romantic requests these are reviewed by our team and the status will change depending on Fitbit plans. 

In regards to your privacy features please check the following articles: How can I help secure my Fitbit account and data? How do I manage my Fitbit profile? 

I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[cyneli]

I was afraid of that.  Now I need to know how to delete my community profile without deleting my account completely.  It's ridiculous that I am given no control over allowing strangers to contact me.  

[Naomiowe]

I have received 6+ friend requests from people that I don't know in the 8 months of owning this fitbit that I have had to block. 

Other community questions have received an answer to the lines of "you must have posted a comment on the community form". This is not a valid response and is also not the case for me since today is my first time posting on this site. 

Please advise how this is happening and if there has ever been a data leak within the company,  please also provide a method to prevent it from happening again.

[Odyssey13]

Hi @Naomiowe  there are many ways someone knows you have a Fitbit. Join a challenge or play challenge bingo? The problem exists in any forum or place where someone has an online account. There hasn't been a data leak from the company. Your information is secure on the Fitbit servers, which can only be reached with your unique email and password. There really isn't a way to prevent all these people from requesting. Just ignore them is best.

[Naomiowe]

@Odyssey13 I've played challenge bingo twice, only with people I'm friends with though. The friend requests in question were from strangers and started happening long before I even knew about or tried bingo, so I don't think it's related to that. In this day and age I don't think "just ignore it" is an acceptable resolution. Many other companies are able to achieve this level of privacy and  it isn't impossible to solve. A simple user account setting "only allow friend requests with email" could work, so that people cannot search for me by name, and must know my email address - if that's what you believe the problem is... it's also concerning that while some of these requests seemed to be just "strangers", others appeared to be spam linking to what looked like porn websites from the URLs. I blocked and reported these accounts, providing feedback, but never heard anything back. I would like to know what is being done to prevent these bogus/spam accounts being created and if a user setting to allow users find you by email only could be implemented.

[cyneli]

I only got requests via email,  and the emails were from Fitbit.  There is no good reason for this, they could turn it off if they wanted to.  This happened BEFORE I signed up for this forum, so it wasn't caused by posting here.   I have done one challenge, which I thought was to challenge myself; I had no idea that it could expose me  to other Fitbit users.  It didn't look like a game with other people. 
   My nearly new Charge4 is going to be for sale if this happens again.  Might be for sale anyway, because now there are 2 new ones in the Fitbit app on my phone.   In the settings, under Notifications, that "feature" is turned OFF, just like the email setting. 

[Odyssey13]

@cyneli  Fitbit doesn't give out your email address, but sends you an email when someone wants you to be their friend. 

[cyneli]

Yes, the emails were obviously from Fitbit even though they did put other people's names in the "From" line. 

[SilviaFitbit]

@Odyssey13 Thank you for your assistance in the thread. 

@cyneli @Naomiowe Hi there. Thank you for your feedback about the emails that you're getting when receiving a friend request. I understand how important privacy is, as mentioned by @Odyssey13 users could add you from Challenges, friends from other friends and from your Community username. 

The emails that you're getting is because you have elected to receive emails for Friend Requests, it's just a notification from Fitbit. If you don't wish to receive them please unsubscribe, the option can be found at the bottom of the email. (check the screenshot below)

I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[top]

So how does person even know who I am to make the request? And NO they are not friends of my friends.

[top]

Several clues: check through your friends to see if person is a friend of one of your friends.; do an image search on their profile picture 9you may find the image they are using out on the internet with a different name...if so probably scammer); do they have recent activity...if no, why are they trying to be friends?; you may have to become their friend just to see their profile details...if you don't like what you see, then remove the friend. If they have a link on their profile page, do not go to it....probably will lead to trouble. I think some "dormant" accounts are being hijacked....they appear to be older accounts from 2014/2015, show a history of badges, but nothing recent...looks suspicious.

I have identified three scammers in the past year (each time with a image search...and no activity). Two were using women's images and two, men's. I notified Fitbit on the first three ...3 months later, one's profile was still out there! Amazingly, the image being used by him (?) was the same one used to scam my 85 year old mother in law out of her life savings so when I got the friend request it was OMG! I didn't even bother reporting the fourth scammer since there seemed to be little follow through from fibit.

[MrDude]

I am getting friend requests from "users" that are obvious scammers or purveyors of questionable web content (porn!). Their About Me section of their profile has a link to "adult dating" sites. 

How do I report these profiles?

Is it too much to ask to have a simple button that will report a user profile for review? 

[BraulioFitbit]

Thanks for stopping by, @MrDude.

Fitbit made an update to stop bad actors from sending additional friend requests. I found this post for you with more details on how to block a user.

Hope this helps.

[MrDude]

I should have been more specific, I'm looking at the web interface, not the app on my phone or tablet. On the web interface there is NO option to report a user. 

Pull up the user profile here: https://www.fitbit.com/user/4B8QQ2 On that page there is no option to report the user. Once you've accepted their friend request, the link to the adult dating site appears in their "about me" section. 

[BraulioFitbit]

Hi, @MrDude.

This has been past to the rest of the team so that it can be looked into since at this moment there's no option to report a user on the online dashboard. Your feedback is appreciated, Fitbit is always working to improve its products and services provided.

See you around.