Facebook – What to Do If Registered and Spammed with Friend Requests

facebookfacebook-privacyspam-prevention

I have no Facebook account. Without ever going on their site, I received an email similar to the following:

You have almost completed the registration process. Confirm your account.
You might be asked to insert this confirmation code. XXXX
Didn't you created an account on Facebook? Let us know.

The let-us-know-link is (obfuscating some numbers and my mail): 

https://www.facebook.com/confirmemail.php?e=myemail&c=****&report=1

which seems a valid one.

Before I could even see this message my mail is full of friends request forwarded by Facebook.

Everyone can register me using my address, but why Facebook is sending friends request before me accepting the registration? Do you know if this is the actual policy? (If not, someone hacked my mail password).

Can you tell me what happens if I click on the mentioned "let-us-know-link"? E.g. will I be inserted in some marketing DB? The fact of receiving all those friend request emails, without any consent, suggests to stay far away from clicking on link that could reveal my identity to them. Now my email address is a possible invalid one, by answering I will be in their DB with a valid mail.

If I had an account I would ask them, but I don't have and don't want to have it.

Best Answer

While the problem is solved, this answer might help to understand how the problem might arise.

  1. Go to facebook.com .
  2. identify the form "Create an account".

  3. Fill the form and as an email address try something like

     thisisatempmail@somecompany.com

The address does not need to be an existing one, but somecompany.com should be a real domain.

After clicking the Create an account button, you are immediately a registered user, without a subsequent address confirmation.

That means that, despite you will see the yellow notice: 

"First name", go to thisisatempmail@somecompany.com to complete the sign-up process.

you are an effective member of the community.

Note that, while there is no check to test that the address exists and that you are its actual owner, if you use a legitimate antispam email domain, such as mailinator.com, this is rejected.

Of course, when there is a real owner of "thisisatempmail@somecompany.com", s/he will get the whole inflow of notifications intended for you and, of course, the address owner does not have possibility to turn off the notifications because s/he can't access the Facebook account, since s/he does not have the account password (only the email address).

Related Topic