Woodlands Online introduces ‘Secured Classifieds’ for added online safety

THE WOODLANDS, TX – In our latest victory against scammers, spammers, phishers and hacks, Woodlands Online has added an extra layer of security to its Classified Ads section. As of this week, you must be a registered user to contact classifieds sellers on Woodlands Online. Non-registered visitors to the site can still view items for sale, but in order to respond to the seller through their specified contact information, they must become a registered member of our site and be logged in.

As always, you can register for membership without charge; verified registered users pay nothing for full access to our site.

Our registration verification process is comprehensive and rigorous in order to verify our members are real people. We process registrations in real-time every day, mornings to evenings; only third-shift night owls should be affected for contacting classifieds sellers awaiting their registration to be validated. Those that live or work in our service area will also receive permissions to publish classifieds, resumes, and more, and participate in our competitions and contests, in real time, and additionally be able to vote in the annual Best of The Woodlands contest.

Concerned about your privacy? We are a Woodlands family-owned 26-year community website whose staff live and work here. Our data is with your data. And we don’t sell or distribute it; we try to protect it best we can. And we don’t spam. In 26 years, we can only recall sending mass emails to registered users only a few times in dire situations – hurricanes come to mind. We have social media and opt-in emails for aggregating and sharing our community’s content – For the Community, By the Community.

We are very proud to report that our spam protection systems have not flagged a single classifieds seller email as scam/spam for two days in a row since the implementation of this new system. Hopefully, we will continue spam and scam free. But please continue to exercise caution when conducting business online, and always be wary; despite our best efforts, there may be those out there wanting to overrule our protocols. As always, quickly letting us know about a spammer or scammer allows us to immediately block them – forever.

Special thanks go to Hal Watson Air Conditioning for being our sponsor who keeps the Classified Ads section free of charge for you.

To become a registered member of Woodlands Online, visit www.woodlandsonline.com/reguser/newuser2.cfm.