emails from fake followers

  • I keep WP getting emails saying that someone is following my blog. When I check my blog stats, they are not there. The email addresses of the followers look suspicious and they are all from outlook.com.

    Does anyone know what’s going on?

    Thanks.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Never mind. I see that it is a recurring and known issue. Hopefully, it will be resolved soon.

  • Hi aggiegoddess –

    Yes, this is a known issue that we are actively working on. Can you tell me if you are marking them as spam manually or if our spam filter is catching them? Thanks.

  • This has started happening to me as well. My blog site is musingsamidthethorns.com. I get email notifications about new followers, but I do not see new followers reflected on my WordPress site.

  • The same happened with my blog as well…
    Anyway, it made my day that I got so many followers :) devntestblog.wordpress.com

  • Hello. I had this problem with weird outlook followers a couple of months ago, which WordPress sorted (thank you!). Overnight I’ve had about ten suspicious “likes” from someone with a “www.sexy……..random letters………website”. I deleted the email notifications of these without clicking on them, but now I’m wondering if I should be doing something else on my site as a result?

  • See comment above. For the moment I have removed the like button from my site. Should I be doing anything else?

  • Update on my WordPress woes: I no longer get phony emails that look like they are from WordPress saying that I have new followers. I now get phony emails that look like they are from WordPress describing “likes” that my posts have gotten. Watch your notification emails closely! The tip off for me is that I got several at the same time, and each email address (from several different blogs) had “sexy” in it.

  • Plerase share the username or blog addresses from these emails. This way I can investigate their accounts.

  • ooof! sorry for the typo. That first word should read *Please*.

  • I have also been getting notifications of new email followers who have outlook email addresses. When I look at my followers list they are there, but then disappear a few hours later. It seems like the same issue that was happening a little while ago. Good to know wordpress are on the case again with it, thank you!

  • @staff-zinnia
    My spam filter has not been catching these and I have not been marking them as spam but will do so now.

    Here are some fo the email addresses of my fake followers:

    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)
    (email visible only to moderators and staff)

  • Hmmm. Not sure why the emails are redacted… how should I submit them?

  • Kaizen BT is the blog user name (which is a blog that I actually follow), but the email address is not correct.<www.sexy.esoreret.ru> is the email address.

  • This is a sample email content
    “(email visible only to moderators and staff) just started following you at http://accidental-goddess.com. They will receive an email every time you publish a post. Congratulations.”

    They are all email addresses on outlook.com

  • breaking up the email address:
    “calderaxsharmainepx (at outlook.com) just started following you at http://accidental-goddess.com. They will receive an email every time you publish a post. Congratulations.”

  • Hmmm. Not sure why the emails are redacted… how should I submit them?

    Staff can read all redacted email addresses. They are redacted by our software.

  • Here are the addresses of my recent fake followers:

    judgeejoyl

    cuthbertsondileonilan

    dinkinstandrewpw

    swaneyodanyelxu

    yoonkebonimn

    Thanks!

    body { font-family: arial; font-size: 0.8em; } .post, .comment { background-color: white !important; line-height: 1.4em !important; }

  • I’m still getting a whole bunch of these, at least every few days, though they don’t stay in my follower list for long. I only had one to clear out just now. I can trawl through my email notifications to grab the spammy addresses if that would help.

  • The topic ‘emails from fake followers’ is closed to new replies.