Last month when I came back to myself, I joined Fetlife - I was looking for a community similar to what I have found here - to my chagrin, I even paid for a membership and started journaling. Less than a month in I received a notice that said,
“ Verify you are you!
We’ve received reports from other members in regard to your profile and I order to unlock your account, we will need to verify your profile.
If we do not verify your profile by Sunday, January 12, 2025, it will be permanently deleted.”
I thought this odd because I had not interacted with anyone and only browsed the site and made journal entries. (Those entries I will post here at a later date to keep consistent with my journey.) Nothing in my profile indicated that I was interested in connecting with anyone. The message seemed strange…
I went to verify myself and they asked for a photo ID. Not only did they want me to upload a copy of my ID, they wanted me to take a picture of myself holding the photo ID! Red!!
Fetlife was hacked and has a vulnerability that exposes the platform to a potential exploit, allowing threat actors to gain unauthorized access to sensitive user information.
Obviously I am not providing any website that kind of personal information- it seems strange that they would require information that could lead to identify theft or reputational damages to the website users.
I have heard nothing back from the site regarding the return of my membership fees
lesson learned
