If someone has covered this before and I've missed it or I'm preaching to the converted then apologies to everyone.

I've seen a couple of posts recently where users have pasted in Autotrader links to vehicles for sale. These links usually contain the postcode the users used as a starting point for their search. I'm guessing that more often than not this is going to be their home or place or work, i.e. where your beloved Scooby is likely to be parked for a great deal of the time. Anyway, what I'm saying is that is someone wanted to, they could do a search on the forums for any AutoTrader links and then extract from that a list of postcodes where Scoobys are likely to be found on a regular basis.

As an example, this is a link to a vehicle I found doing a search for Imprezas based on where I used to live :

http://atsearch.autotrader.co.uk/WWW/CARS_popup.asp?nU=0&make=SUBARU&model=IMPREZA&min_pr=75&max_pr=10000&postcode=ng3%205at&miles=40&max_records=50&modelexact=1&start=6&distance=37&adcategory=CA RS&channel=CARS&id=200436159629616

Click here to try it :
http://atsearch.autotrader.co.uk/WWW...00436159629616

As you can see there is all sorts of info in there including the make and model I searched for, the minimum and maximum prices (min_pr and max_pr), my postcode (ng3%205at - which translates to ng3 5at, just take out the %20), how far I want to travel and how many results to return. Right at the end is the id for the car I want to see (id=200436159629616).

Instead of that all you need is this :

http://atsearch.autotrader.co.uk/WWW/CARS_popup.asp?id=200436159629616

Click here to try it : http://atsearch.autotrader.co.uk/WWW/CARS_popup.asp?id=200436159629616

Just the advert ID, i.e. (id=200436159629616). It doesn't give away any info about you or what you searched on, it just shows the advert. Try it and see for yourself.

If you're pasting links from other searches/websites, just make sure you're not incuding any info that could be used against you.

Hope this helps - don't make it easy for the scumbags.

Rgds.

TruckBoy.

 

Nice advice, and thanks for pointing out my little mistake

An alternative solution is to use a fake postcode. Somewhere not a million miles from where you live, so that you still get meaningful results.

I pity the person that goes to the postcode in my search