Valid email addresses?

[+drmellow]

I'm helping my father set up a geocaching account, but we're having problems due to validation issues on his email address. In order to reduce spam and increase privacy, my father uses pobox.com for his "public" email address -- it forwards email (after applying spam filters) to the address assigned to him by his ISP. However, when attempting to create a new geocaching account, we receive the following message:

 

"We are not accepting email addresses from that provider. Please choose an alternate email address."

 

Why is pobox.com being excluded? Using pobox.com is a great way to have an email address that is not tied to a specific ISP -- he's switched ISPs in the past and plans to move soon, which will probably result in another ISP/email address change. By never revealing the email address his ISP provided him, my father has been able to very effectively manage his spam. Obviously, if we have to, we will provide the ISP-provided email address in order to sign up for the account, but we'd much rather use the public email address that he uses for every other internet service he signs up for.

 

Is there any chance of lifting the restriction on pobox.com addresses? Anyone have any other advice?

[+drmellow]

Is there any chance of lifting the restriction on pobox.com addresses? Anyone have any other advice?

 

Answering my own question.... We were able to create the account using the ISP-provided email address, then immediately change the address to the pobox.com address with no problem. It seems strange to me that pobox.com is not allowed during account creation, but valid after the account is created.

 

*shrug* In the end, we've got the set-up that we were hoping for, so it's fine with us.

[+jmmhooper]

Is there any chance of lifting the restriction on pobox.com addresses? Anyone have any other advice?

 

Answering my own question.... We were able to create the account using the ISP-provided email address, then immediately change the address to the pobox.com address with no problem. It seems strange to me that pobox.com is not allowed during account creation, but valid after the account is created.

 

*shrug* In the end, we've got the set-up that we were hoping for, so it's fine with us.

 

I would advise having a second email account with yahoo or gmail that you use just for website type registrations and just use your private one for friends and family.

[+Bad_CRC]

there is much talk here about "sock puppets" which I would imagine is what prompted that.

 

easy to create many accounts with throw away email addresses that way.

 

 

one of those things in my opinion that inconveniences honest people at the same time solving a problem with jerks. like antivirus, airport security, spam filters, etc.

[+darus67]

Unfortunately, a determined jerk can get around any of the above, and the honest folks still have to deal with it.

[+welch]

My guess is that the idea of making you provide a valid email is to 'insure' your an actual person and not some sort of robot spam machine... if they know pobox?? isn't really an email provide, why would it be allowed?

 

You really should consider asking your question in the geocaching.com forum (or asking a mod to move it there?) since thats the sub-forum the site admins usually watch.

[+briansnat]

Moving the appropriate forum.