I have been a member there for a very long time. I had only a handful of posts many, many years ago. I recently inherited a Datejust from my diseased brother and wanted to get some info on it. So I logged on and discovered I could not post on any of the sub-forums. At some point, some became visible and the rest showed as PRIVATE.
This is what I see if I don't logon.
I created a second member account so I could test a theory that the permissions for my account were jacked up. Sure enough, I could see everything and even post.
I contacted the Admins through the Contact US and waited and waited and waited. Finally I got a reply. After trading several cryptic messages with a nameless person, I gave up. The last reply I got from the Admin was:
"Due to scammers requesting password help we require anyone now to follow
this procedure.
To authenticate the account:
You must authenticate your original account if you wish to continue.
To reactivate your account you must authenticate your identity.
To solve this problem and authenticate and have your account reinstated
your identity and account needs to be verified:
(a) send US$25 by Paypal to account
[email protected]
(b) in the message section of your payment state:
I. Your name and address;
II. Your username;
III. Your email at TRF;
IV. Your telephone number.
We may have to create a donor account and then merge the existing account
into the donor account if the account has 2FA activated and you cannot
unlock 2FA. If this is the case further work will be required and you will
have to make a request for this to be done, which will involve additional
time and admin fee.
Subject to the above and checks your account will be rectified and a new
password will be issued to you and your account restored."
So, I'm being asked to send them $25 to do their job. This is a very poor way to treat members. It's a permissions issue, not a password issue. It should take less that 10 minutes to fix. It looks to me like they need someone with VBulletin experience to help them out.
