An invitation to join a social network or malware?

The other day I got three emails telling me friends wanted to send me a "teddy." Funny thing is, each of those friends denied sending such an email.  The links in the emails directed me to the website you can see in the screen shot on the right.

So what gives? The emails invited me to register at www.shtyle.fm and supply all sorts of personal information in order to receive the gift. Sorry, no can do.

I don't know whether it was a trojan horse or aggressive marketing, but when emails get sent out without the knowledge of the sender then something smells phishy.

Comments

[Jeff]

So ... a teddy bear, a teddy nightgown, or a Teddy Kennedy? ... guess it depends on which site you visit
:-)

[Geo]

Jeff, I really don't know, but I suspect it's just a teaser anyway. So take your pick. The chance of getting any one of them is probably about equal.

[i9 3G Phone]

I loved the type ad commenting system very clean and very efficient.

Love to read more from you on the topic above

[Cindy]

I also had people on my contacts list complain of this. Supposedly you can send complaints to [email protected], but when I did it was rejected by the domain as their mailbox is full.

If you have gmail, you can have messages from this site deleted. Your email account may have been hacked in order for the messages to be sent out, so you should change your password.

[Geo]

Good advice, Cindy. Thanks.

[Annie]

This site, though it might be legitimate, seems to have unethical practices. A friend got an invitation, apparently from someone she knew. She "signed up", and all of a sudden people on her contact list were getting invitation to join, seemingly from her. But, she sent no invitation; she did not supply shytle with her contacts info. Somehow, they seem to have accessed her contacts list. BAD!

[Geo]

Bad indeed, Annie. Thanks for sharing this.

[Mckayla]

Well, that makes sense.
http://www.filecatch.com/trends/jp/31-09-2010.html

[gazeroo]

The place where they access your emails is on the second step of the sign in where it asks for your EMAIL PASSWORD. That was the stinker that caught my eye. No website has any business with asking for the password to our personal email! Personally, they should take down that site for such practices.

[Linda]

This is not correct, they do not ask for your email password. Your email address is your "user name" on Shtyle and you create a password for the account. I have made several good friends on this site and enjoy playing the many free games there.
It is correct to say however, that the invitation I received from 1 of my friends to join Shtyle was not sent by him, therefore they do seem to have ways of finding out peoples details and making them think their friends are inviting them to join...This is not good!

[Floods]

Yes I joined the site, because of an APPARENT invite email from a good friend I had little connection to. I very quickly discovered it was a waste of web space, deleted my account however I STILL RECIEVE ALL THE USELESS UPDATES IN MY GMAIL INBOX ('Someone' posted a new photo etc..) Even after I deleted my acount, and cannot sign in to the site anymore. ggrrrrrrr