Getting spam via vanillaforums?
Using ver 2.2. I recently joined vanillaforums.org and just received a spam message to my personal email (which I have indicated NOT to show). He said he got my email from vanillaforums. I didn’t follow any of his links, but I am showing a flag for [1] message on the top my function bar. When I click it, I get “You do not have any messages yet.” but the flag remains.
The email subject shows: “[Vanilla Forums] kings11 sent you a message” and the message is signed by “Rev. Cristopher Madu” who invites me to partner with him in $14.5 million dollars. (Hah!) 
When I initiate a new vanilla private message and type “kings” in the recipient box, sure enough “kings11” appears. When I search on “kings11” it displays no posts.
Is this a common problem? Any way to prevent it? Thank you.
Comments
@LuxVera
Did you actually get an email?
I had a PM on here from this user, and banned them.
The PM notification is showing because you haven't opened the message (because it was deleted before you could see it.)
You can't see the user because they were banned.
@Linc - will the notification clear itself?
Yes, I got an actual email to my personal email account. If it helps, I could PM you with the actual message and its raw source.
PMs are also sent by mail. I just wrote a PM to you to show you this and help you getting rid of the new message flag.
@RJ
Didn't think about notification preferences.
Okay - The new message flag is gone and I understand now. Even though my profile says not to display my email, my notifications says to notify me of PMs by email. At least the spammer (hopefully) does not have my email address
Thanks for clarifying this.
@LuxVera Some strange avatar. Some strange post "Getting spam via vanillaforums?" Such a proposal $14.5 million dollars i have never been done
@LuxVera
I don't see any way the spammer could have your email.
The email notification is sent out by Vanilla.