This add-on collects the messages your members send each other — from the mailbox and from the instant messenger — into your admin panel, where you can read them.

It exists for one reason: scams and harassment happen in private messages, where your usual moderation never looks. A member being pressured for money will often not report it, because shame keeps people quiet. You find out when they leave.

You are about to read private conversations between adults who came to your site to be private. That is a serious thing, and in many countries a regulated one.

Three things to do first:

1. Say so in your terms and privacy policy. Plainly, not buried: that messages may be reviewed for safety. In the EU, the UK and several other places, reading private communication without telling people is not a grey area — it is a breach. See editing your text pages.

2. Decide who gets access, and keep it short. You, and maybe one trusted moderator. Not everyone with an admin account. See moderator accounts with limited access.

3. Agree with yourself when you will look. On a report, on a fraud alert, on a pattern in the banned words list. Not browsing out of curiosity. The moment someone on your team reads messages for entertainment, you have a different problem than the one you bought this to solve.

A member reports someone. Instead of one side of the story you see the conversation, and you can act without guessing.

One scammer, many victims. Fraudsters send the same text to dozens of people. Find it once and you find everyone they approached — and often you reach the others before they lose money.

Payment disputes. When a member claims they were misled, the conversation is the evidence.

Checking your own filters. Reading a few real conversations shows whether your banned words catch anything useful or just annoy ordinary members. See moderation and banned words.

If your problem is scammers rather than disputes, start with the tools that do not require reading anything.

Banned words catch the phrases scams begin with — moving to another messenger, asking for money — and cost nothing. Reports from members turn your whole audience into moderators. Both are part of the platform.

Add access to correspondence when those two are working and you still need to see what happened, not just that something did.

Included from the Plus plan. See the pricing page and the add-on card.

Do members know their messages can be read?
Only if you tell them. Which you should, in your terms — see above.

Which messages are collected?
From the mailbox and from the instant messenger.

Can I search rather than read everything?
Yes, and that is the practical way to use it: search for a phrase you have seen in a report and find everyone who received it.

Is this legal where I operate?
Depends entirely on where your members are. Disclosure in the terms is the minimum everywhere. If your audience is in the EU or the UK, take advice — the rules there are strict and the fines are not small.