Confirming giffgaff accounts

[#1]

I was recently suspected of creating a giffgaff account and as it is known "cheating the system". After being told this by a giffgaff employee I looked into how easy it really was for me to be able to create this giffgaff account I am currently using by setting one up for a demonstrational purpose only.

The Suggestion

My suggestion is that there should be a confirmation email sent to every person who wants to sign up to giffgaff which would be sent to the email they stated in the registration form, then until they have confirmed the email by clicking a link, provided in the email, they cannot use the giffgaff community service. By doing this there would be less people abusing the giffgaff community in order to earn payback points, kudos, achieve higher ranks or get accepted answers. This would be because each account would have to be confirmed by the person who would use it therefore stopping people giving false/random email addresses and signing up like I was able to for this demonstration. Many major websites who have accounts for their members already have this feature of having to confirm the account through email to stop random/false emails being used.

Photo Demonstration

Current screen shown after clicking register after given random details:

This shows that no confirmation is required of the account and after clicking register you are instantly able to use the giffgaff community and "cheat the system".

Proposed method of signing up:

(Supossing real deatails were used) Registration form details filled out:

After clicking submit you are taken to a page like this:

The user then signs into thier email to get confirmation email:

The user then opens the email to click on the confirmation link to allow them to use their new giffgaff account:

I believe that if this was implemented as a part of giffgaff the community would not have as many people who try to "cheat the system" in order to earn more payback points, extra kudos, earn higher community rankings or get nore accepted answers. Therefore making the community a happier place as there is nobody trying to cheat the system and there are no unfair rewards given by cheating users!

Thank you,

Jamie

Kudos will go far if you think this is a good idea and want there to be a cheat free community!

Spoiler

Spoiler

Give kudos if you too want no cheats on the community and think this idea would stop this from happening.

[#2]

There is all ready an idea for an activation email ( my idea )

[#3]

its easy enough to get another email to use if you want to create another account so i cant see this making much difference

[#4]

Link http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Has-none-noticed-this/idi-p/2788233

[#5]

This is true but it would certainly slow them down and/or put them off

[#6]

email confirmation proves nothing. email addresses are not personal. want to be stricter you have to go with phone confirmation like Facebook /Gmail

[#7]

Yes, perhaps email confirmation may not help too much, but think of tomoro is heading in the right direction, I think we need better security for new account sign ups, and there should be as many ways to 'verify' an account as possible. Obviously we don't want the procedures to be complicated enough that it would be potentially off putting for new customers, I don't know how far this can go, as I have no idea how its done tech-wise, but we definitely should try to get more attention on these ideas. Kudos added

[#8]

Please search the idea exchange before posting http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Has-none-noticed-this/idi-p/2788233 Duplicate

[#9]

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Has-none-noticed-this/idi-p/2788233

[#10]

I think this is a good idea, but it would fail for me as i register my sims for my friends and family, and some of them dot even have an email, so i would have to setup new email adresses for all new members i bring to the community, so there for i would probably be put off by registering sims for epople as this would make so much hassle, so what if people want to cheat the system, we all do it, we are all doing it right now, by cheatin all other networks and choosing giffgaff.

But i stil thill dtongly agree that this would reduce the amount of new members we meet..