We recently had a situation where a person attempted to spoof an admin (me) and then send some pretty nasty PM's to various members of the community. Prior to this, we put into place a verification system that can indicate to you whether you are receiving a verified admin's PM. If you receive a PM from any admin that are real admins, the message will have at the top this statement:

 

If this message does not appear above the PM of a staff member, you can be reasonably certain that the person sending you a PM is not an admin or staff member. If that happens, please report the post / person immediately. Thank you.

Crazy that you need to do things like this in the first place.

Crazy that you need to do things like this in the first place.

 

Yes, it is. But, when some put the community at risk to satisfy their own egos, then we need to step up the layers of protection. This is just one more.