that they used your first name.  Sort of goes against the spirit of discretion here ....

I recently received for the first time a Private Message from TER Support letting me know why a recent review of mine was not approved.  I fixed the problem and replied to their PM letting them know.  Received a response back and in the response, my first name was used.

Seems quite odd to me.  Has anyone else received PM's from TER Support about their reviews?

Yes. I have a few times.

No sweat-nothing to worry about.

Same thing -- just giving a reason why the review was rejected.  One time it wa obvious that the TER reviewer hadn't read my review very carefully, so I complained, got another reasonable response back, and they accepted the original review as I had written it.

I've had several problems. Had one review of over 5500 words or explicit detail of our encounter, it was rejected because it was not explicit. When I asked why they actually read the review and approved it. Another review was rejected because I only had a few reviews and they thought a new review was a new provider. When I responded that the provider was well established with over 10 reviews, they approved my review.
So, my lesson learned is if it is a legitimate review, keep pushing till they accept it.

My thoughts exactly..........  Glad to know I'm not alone in thinking it a bit odd.

Ummmm, I think you missed the point of my post totally.  Had nothing to do with the approval of the review.....................  Had to do with TER Support PMing me and using my name.

why would you have ever used your real name when registering on this site?

Discretion, or the lack of it, cuts both ways.

I created a fake last and first name when I registered on this site. It is not tied to the credit card name.

Look at your Account Manager and see what you gave them. Likely you gave it to them. Now consider changing it if you are so concerned about discretion.

Too many people sign up using their real names and public personal email or even worse their business email.

Discretion starts with you.

Maybe he used his CC for membership?  The alternative is doing the money order and waiting for it to get overseas, etc...does TER pull names from billing?  Would be my guess.

You got it.

Is the name there not the same as your real name? You can change it any time you want along with the email address.

I don't know how they handle it if you are paying by CCbill as in all my years here I have never paid for my VIP I only submit reviews and problem reports.

And as for addressing you by your name using the TER PM system the only ones who are going to know would be you and the staff member unless you forward your PM to someone else.

I wouldn't worry about this and don't think it's a big deal. If I did, I would likely cancel the pay membership and maintain the free one change the name used for the account manager profile and work on getting free VIP days from reviews or posting problem reports.

But that's just a suggestion.