Subject: Making posts with photos

Some members are experiencing an issue when making posts with photos. We do know that the vast majority of posts made with images– particularly those with just one image– tend to go through. Our best advice at this time is to keep trying. If your post appears without photos try editing the post to add one or more photos.

We want you to know that resolving this issue is our technical teams top priority. It is a challenging issue to nail down as it as it is not occurring with all members or at all times with each member. Please know that we are focusing on fixing this but, frankly, we don’t know when it will be fixed. As a charitable nonprofit with one engineer we all have to do what we can to “protect the quarterback” so he can keep focusing on the most urgent issues. With over 85 servers on various continents and nearly 11 million members and about a thousand ton(ne)s daily of items being posted there are a lot of moving parts, to say the least. Special thanks to our system administrator who is putting in a lot of time on this.

We truly appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this issue.

Deron Beal
Freecycle Executive Director

On August 30th The Freecycle Network / Freecycle.org became aware of a data breach on Freecycle.org. As a result we are reaching out to to members to ask that you change your Freecycle.org password as soon as possible. We very much apologize for the inconvenience. 

Further information on the breach and on how to change your password may be found here:

https://freecycle.helpscoutdocs.com/article/319-data-breach-august-2023

   [and there is a “?” icon on that page if you have further questions for our Help Team]

The breach of data includes usernames, User IDs, email addresses and hashed passwords. Because of the exposure of personal passwords we are taking every measure to quickly inform members about the need to change their passwords. If you have used the same password elsewhere, you are well advised to change the password there as well. No other personal information was compromised and the breach has been closed and is being reported to the respective privacy authorities. 

While most email providers do a good job at filtering out spam, you may notice that you receive more spam than usual. As always, please remain vigilant of phishing emails, avoid clicking on links in emails, and don’t download attachments unless you are expecting them. 

Here are some useful links to help keep you safe:

https://haveibeenpwned.com/ Find out what past data breaches have involved your personal information. 

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-scams#report (U.S.) Learn how to recognize phishing emails.

https://www.gov.uk/report-suspicious-emails-websites-phishing#:~:text=Forward%20suspicious%20emails%20to%20report,(%20NCSC%20)%20will%20investigate%20it. Learn how to recognize and report phishing scams in the UK

Again, we thank you for your generous gifting locally and apologize for the hassle.

Sincerely yours,

Deron Beal, Executive Director