Suspicious email addresses for a large number of new "followers"

  • worldstreets · Member ·

    In the last several weeks our WP.com site has started to be bombarded by a very large number (hundreds) of more than suspicious email addresses. Here is a sample:

    (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)

    Others in this barbarian invasion appear to come from: @beyondraspberryketones.com @maxthermoburnreview.net @freshsmokereview.com, @advancedtestoboosts.com, and a very large number with Hotmail addresses. etc. etc.

    This looks to me like an attack and I need to know how to deal with it. Thus far there are no signs other than these rampant sign-ins, but I am concerned about where this might lead to. And I am sure that I am not the only one. Thanks/Eric Britton

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

  • kathrynwp · Staff ·

    Thanks for letting us know. Blog followers and subscribers can’t do much harm just by following your site, so it’s probably not something to be too worried about as long as you don’t correspond with them.

    Here are two good posts about so-called “spam followers” that you might want to check out:

    https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/there-must-be-an-option-to-block-spam-followers

    https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-spam-follower

  • ismailimail · Member ·

    There are many of us concerned with legitimate reasons. Here are some related threads:

    [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

  • ismailimail · Member ·

    The response by the WP staff is so disheartening, regarding these all around spam issues, that I have yet to speak about the increase in number of spam-comment email notification I’ve been getting at my blog.

    There was a time not too long ago when Akismet was working properly and I would hardly care to see the spam comment queue. But not too long ago, the email notification from the spam comments starts showing up in my inbox and now they are the daily routine.

    If WP is not interested in fixing one type of spam (mentioned above), how can we be assured that they would look at other type of spam? It seems like either my blog is the only one suffering from these issues, or people have just given up.

  • kathrynwp · Staff ·

    ismailimail – if you’d like us to have a look at your site’s spam comments issue, would you mind starting a new thread and adding the word modlook in the Tags section. Please include a link to the site in question since you have several, thanks.

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