Verizon emails ~ banned from the forum ~ spam?

[Jlvs2run]

I've received emails on February 25th and today, supposedly from forum moderator Xenopeek, about Verizon email addresses being banned from the forum.

However: 1) a search of the forum shows nothing about this;
2) a search of Xenopeek's posts shows not even one post regarding Verizon, which makes me think someone is spoofing his icon.

I'm posting this in the forum, instead of private message, to bring this out in the open as others have probably received these emails as well.

Hopefully Xenopeek and others can clarify this issue. Below is the email.

~
Hello,

I'm contacting you as you are a Linux Mint forums member, you've visited in the past 12 months and you're using a Verizon email address. As some of you already know Verizon is currently blocking all email from the Linux Mint forums as "spam" and has been unwilling to change its position on that. This affects all members (no registration activation emails, password reset emails or subscription notification emails can be sent to new or existing members with a Verizon email address). Both we and some of you have contacted Verizon on this to no effect.

As such I see no other recourse than to disallow new members from registering with a Verizon email address (as they can't receive registration activation emails currently). Unfortunately that will also effectively block any existing members with a Verizon email address from logging in. I.e., you won't be able to login after I disallow Verizon email addresses.

On Saturday March 11th I will make this change. Therefor, if you wish to continue to use the Linux Mint forums, please change your email address before that date. No other email provider is blocking the Linux Mint forums so you can use any email provider other than Verizon. After logging in to the forums you can change your email address on User Control Panel > Profile > Edit account settings (direct link: ucp.php?i=ucp_profile&mode=reg_details). It should go without saying, but if you've forgotten your password please email us here as the forum won't be able to send you a password reset email as long as you use a Verizon email address.

Best regards,
[ Xenopeek icon ]

[xenopeek]

This is legitimate. It's not something that I thought warranted posting on the forums as it affects less than 50 active members.

[Cosmo.]

which makes me think someone is spoofing his icon.

If you are concerned about this, you could report the PM - as any post in the forum - with a click on the ! icon at the top of the message. This will receive the team (and only the team) and they can take a look at it.
Saying that, it appears as extremely unlikely, that a faked sender would be possible.

[xenopeek]

As noted in OP's post, I sent an email. Sending a PM wouldn't have worked as most of the affected members don't frequent here on a weekly basis and notification emails can't be delivered to them by the forum.

[Jlvs2run]

Thank you for the clarification.

Both we and some of you have contacted Verizon on this to no effect.

Verizon has changed to Frontier, and AOL handles the Verizon.net email accounts.

Perhaps contacting them would be helpful. In the meantime, I have changed the email address.