I have never seen a more user-unfriendly site. All I wanted to do was thank the person who replied to my thread. My first attempt was returned because it went to an unmonitored address. The second attempt was turned down because I wasn't recognised. At the third try, my message was refused because of spam-like content. I don't understand how 'thank you' can be considered spam by any stretch of the imagination. I am no longer interested in such a difficult exercise.
Beacon - I'm sorry you are having problems using the forum. It's an unfortunate fact that there aree many forum formats and they're all a bit different.
I'm not entirely sure exactly what happened to you, but as
@bulkbiker has said, there are some controls around immediate personal messages, because, sadly, not everyone uses the internet for positive impacts, and here at DCUK the safety of our members is of paramount importance. Once a few forum board messages, private messaging is released.
I'm not overly familiar with the app, but I believe on the Android app, attempts to send a very early private message can return unexpected messages. Again, once a few forum posts have been made this resolves itself.
I hope having got yourself this far you stick around.