If you’re not aware, Goodreads (here’s my author page) is one of the social media/reading enthusiast sites on the interwebs these days. It’s pretty spiffy, and has a ton of cool features. One of the best things about it has been the relatively high signal to noise ratio.
And then I just got this:
Add Vivian (vivian.12love@########) as a friend?
Vivian is currently following your reviews
Vivian said: “Hello My Name is Vivian Anderson I am a female, i saw your profile I became so much interested to established a relationship with you, Please kindly contact me on my email address at (vivian2012anderson@#######) for more introduction and my picture. Regards Vivian vivian2012anderson@####”
Um, no. Even if I hadn’t actually taken a class taught by someone whose day job is fighting online scams and con-artists, I’d still be really really wary of this.
There’s a way to block individual users… but there isn’t a way to report someone as a potential scammer/spammer. Which is a lack I hope those con artists don’t exploit, at least until the folks at Goodreads get some kind of remedy in place… because as I mentioned, the service is cool.
Speaking of, don’t forget that the giveaway for Dangers Untold only runs until 8 October – so go enter now!