Strangers want to be our friends??!

[MicroX]

Yesterday both of us got notifications on our smartphones from the fitbit app.  Strangers wanted to be "friends".  Sorry, but there's no way we're going to start friending strangers who may or may not be fitbit users.

Is there a procedure to turn off this type of notification? 

[LZeeW]

@MicroX   Like you, I get these requests that are obviously spammers.  One clue is to look at the user's profile and you will see that there is No Activity and from the date you can see that it is a brand new account.

The instructions on how to deal with this kind of request are outlined in this Help article.  Please take the time to report a user as well as block that user. 

I don't know of any way to block these notifications.

[MicroX]

Thanks for your reply.

I use Thunderbird as an email client, on a PC running Ubuntu.

After starting this post, I turned to email.  I found an email from one of the strangers.  The stranger's name is (supposedly) Jo D. just in case others are getting the same friend request.  The email appears to be from fitbit, but as we know appearances can be deceiving.  Towards the bottom of the email there's a statement: "You're receiving this email at (email address) because you have elected to receive emails for Friend Requests.  Not interested anymore?  Unsubscribe.

The Unsubscribe appears to be a link, but unsubscribing sometimes accomplishes nothing except confirming there's a warm body at the other end of that email address.

So, the way I see it, either someone has hacked fitbit's database and is spoofing users, or fitbit is enabling this unwelcome invasion of my email inbox.  

Not happy with either option. 

[MicroX]

I followed your link for help articles.  After looking through the article (which was heavy on articles about joining and thin on articles about disconnecting) I checked both phones to see if somehow either one of us had any "friends".  

Nope, no friends on either phone.  Neither one of us have accepted any friend requests nor made any, so that makes sense.

So, to recap, Jo D. dropped an email into our inbox.  The email we got from Jo D. appears to be from fitbit.  Appears to be.  Thunderbird indicates the "From" is "messages-noreply@fitbit.com".  I'm not a cyber detective, but I believe the "from" address can be spoofed. 

I'm not clear on what exactly has happened here.  Whether it's something that fitbit allows, or some sort of hack of their users? 

Either way, I'm very unhappy that fitbit is the mechanism enabling an invasion of our privacy.

[LZeeW]

@MicroX   Thank you for your more complete description of everything that happened.  I am going to flag this thread to get the attention of a moderator.  This might help Fitbit deal with these spam accounts.

There is an additional step that might help.  If you tap on your profile picture, then scroll down to Notifications, you will see the settings for Push Notifications and Email Notifications.  I have both toggled to OFF.  I haven't received a spam email request, but if I did, I would trash it without opening it.

[MicroX]

Thanks for your reply, and for flagging the thread.  I was wondering if any employees cruise these forums.

Under "Push Notifications" I toggled "Friend Requests", "Messages", "Cheers & Taunts", and "Challenges" to OFF.

Under "Email Notifications" I toggled "Friend Requests", "Messages", and "Challenges" to OFF.

That should help.  AFAIC the finger still points back to fitbit and their casual attitude towards customers' personal data, but it's something.

[LZeeW]

@MicroX   There are Moderators, Fitbit employees, who do monitor the site.  The coronavirus pandemic has affected Moderator support around the world.  Fitbit is a US company, but there are support centers around the world.  Many of these offices have been closed.  Moderator support is limited.

Community Council members are volunteers who are very knowledgeable about Fitbit products.  We are doing all the we can to help users.

There are some very determined bad actors out there.  Even the best spam blockers can't keep out everyone.  I don't think Fitbit's attitude to customer data is as casual as you believe.  We all must remain diligent.

[MatthewFitbit]

Thanks @LZeeW for pointing out that help article - I can confirm that flagged content is handled by our moderation team, and that spam/scam content is dealt with appropriately.

@MicroX You are correct that the volume of this sort of content has increased recently. Our team is working on a solution to ensure it doesn't have an ongoing presence in your Community Feed.

[MicroX]

Hi, Matthew -

Can you explain the mechanism that allowed Jo D. to send me an email?  As I mentioned earlier, the "from" header indicated that the email came from fitbit's servers, not Jo D. directly.  I'm assuming it works kind of like craigslist, where buyers and sellers can contact each other but craigslist acts as a go-between?