These ‘comments’ appeared in my WordPress notifications from yesterday. I have no idea what they mean. Is this a bot, many bots, one person with many bogus accounts, or a weird scammer [for what though]?
Has anyone else been visited by this weirdness? More importantly how do I stop this ‘thing’ from visiting again? Any ideas?
Baffled,
Meeks
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About acflory
I am the kind of person who always has to know why things are the way they are so my interests range from genetics and biology to politics and what makes people tick.
For fun I play online mmorpgs, read, listen to a music, dance when I get the chance and landscape my rather large block.
Work is writing. When a story I am working on is going well I'm on cloud nine. On bad days I go out and dig big holes...
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Authors' favourite books
NANO 2012
May 25th, 2018 at 9:00 am
Well, as everybody else said, already, it’s spam. If you treat the “names” into actual links they will take you to a “sex dating” site. Well, that’s what it presents itself to be, but I can’t guarantee it’s something as innocent as that.
So, probably the owner of those accounts there, or the owner of the site, thought of using your account to promote themselves, or something alike. As you’ve been advised, just classify them as spam and then delete them 🤓
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May 25th, 2018 at 9:42 am
Wow…I had no idea, Yorgos. Thank you! I thought they were just like a prank, but clearly there’s something more sinister going on. I’ve been blogging for over six years but this is the first time I’ve ever had visitors like these. Feel kind of naive. 😦
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May 25th, 2018 at 6:34 pm
Feel kind of lucky instead! You’ve successfully gone six years with non of those pests 😁
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May 25th, 2018 at 8:32 pm
-grin- I think that’s because my blog isn’t exactly super exciting. 😀
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May 29th, 2018 at 10:34 pm
😜 I think your blog is quite informative and interesting 😁
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May 30th, 2018 at 8:35 am
Awww…thank you! -hugs-
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May 25th, 2018 at 7:01 am
Urgh. Frustrating and maddening. Take that, BOT- to the trash!! 🧐
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May 25th, 2018 at 9:53 am
lmao – yes! That’s the one satisfying part. 😀
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May 25th, 2018 at 5:56 am
Yes, I had a bunch of Russian Sexbots flooding my spam folder.
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May 25th, 2018 at 10:00 am
lmao! I only just learned about the sex connection from Yorgos. I really have led a sheltered life. 😀
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May 25th, 2018 at 12:39 pm
I checked my spam box and it’s loaded with the same crap as yours. Sometimes the bot is stupid and leaves the .RU address on the spam. I’ve always thought Putin was advertising when he said Russia had the most beautiful hookers in the world. Maybe Vlad thinks all Americans are decadent Trumpian sex addicts. 🙂
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May 25th, 2018 at 4:06 pm
lmao! You could be right about Putin. I’ve received heaps of ‘sexy russian girls’ via email but getting the same thing on my blog is a new experience. Pity they don’t send some about sexy Russian boys. I always did have a huge crush on Rudolph Nureyev. 😀
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May 26th, 2018 at 12:33 pm
LOL…I thought they sent him! Can I get a hubba-hubba for Baryshnikov?
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May 27th, 2018 at 8:06 pm
Oh wow…I’d forgotten about Baryshnikov. Yes, hubba HUBBA, but…I saw Nureyev once, in Melbourne, live, as a 12 year old. He will always have a piece of my heart. 🙂
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May 28th, 2018 at 2:52 am
Great artists.
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May 24th, 2018 at 6:10 am
I got one yesterday too (Tuesday) – It got past Akismet (probably the structure of the address) and appeared in my ‘comments’ section, but I have my filter set so that I have to approve the first time anyone comments, so I caught it and banished it to the trash poste haste. Maybe the ‘outlook.com’ crowd got tired of no-one paying them any attention and decided to try something different.
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May 24th, 2018 at 6:22 am
P.S. … just checked my spam file and there were 20 of them, exactly the same as the one that got through … so Akismet works 99.99% of the time:)
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:54 am
lol – just got through sending all of mine to spam as well. I guess I’ll just chalk it up to internet graffiti. 🙂
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:56 am
‘Outlook.com crowd’? I haven’t heard of them. Kiddies? Other?
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May 24th, 2018 at 10:20 am
Blog followers (spammers) who consist of a strange conglomeration of letters and symbols with ‘outlook.com’ on the end.
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:13 pm
Oooooh! I see. I didn’t even notice that part. I thought it might be some global conspiracy. 😀
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May 24th, 2018 at 4:25 am
They do look, sound, and act like untrustworthy comments. If you don’t have it already, get the Akismet plugin. It catches most of the undesirable comments; you can set it to automatically send them to the right folder so you can manually delete them, or so it just doesn’t let them in to begin with. (The problem with the latter option is you risk actual comments being deleted. I have had some comments put in the spam folder that did not belong there.)
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:58 am
Hi John. Like you, I’ve always worried about losing genuine comments. I’ll check it out. 🙂
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May 23rd, 2018 at 10:46 pm
WordPress say there’s been a flood of fake blog followers and they were taking steps to try to prevent it. Looks as though stage 2 is this spam stuff. Just delete and hope the children get bored.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:01 am
-waves at Andy- lol will do. I suppose the kids found me due to the ESO post. Ah well. 🙂
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May 23rd, 2018 at 7:41 pm
I haven’t had these, but lately I’ve had a lot of new ‘followers’ whose only identity is an Outlook email address with a lot of jumbled letters – no gravatar, no blog, just the email address. Not sure what that’s about, but it seems dodgy to me.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:03 am
Hi Annabelle. I think that must be what Andy mentioned. I’ve had quite a few ‘odd’ followers too but didn’t think much of it as I always check before I follow back. Now I’m wondering if it’s all part of the same pattern.
But what is this ‘outlook’ connection? I’m intrigued.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:48 pm
Me too! I checked my comments and there was only one in Spam, so it looks like Akismet is doing it’s job. Hopefully this rash of fake followers will phase out soon.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:50 pm
Amen to that. Even if it’s just kids having a bit of fun, it’s annoying.
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May 23rd, 2018 at 6:27 pm
Spam – Do NOT reply to them , Meeks – if any get missed by your AV, transfer them into your Spam Bin, then empty your spam as usual.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:05 am
Thanks Chris, just cleaned them out. I’m used to spam with my emails. This is a new development for me. 🙂
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May 23rd, 2018 at 4:12 pm
Yes, I’ve had this across all four blogs I monitor. Just make sure they all go to spam and don’t click anything.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:10 am
Hi Sue, will do ma’am. 😀 But…four blogs? Do you ever sleep????
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May 24th, 2018 at 9:34 am
Not often 😉
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:13 pm
Gah…:(
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May 23rd, 2018 at 3:57 pm
it made me wonder and then laugh – I guess it must be the irresistible attraction that you and I create. A virtual Venn Diagram of …. well, I’m not quite sure. The last time I created something similar, it was with my work colleague Luanne.
We’ve always called ours The Venn Diagram Of Doom (cue cinema voice)
Practically every time she and I would sit in the same group of desks, there’d be an accident near us. From filing cabinets collapsing, to window poles striking heads, to fainting or epileptic fits. We had 18 years of working together – mostly in different areas of the building (and for about 7 years in different towns) – almost every time we were near each other an ambulance had to be called for whichever unfortunate colleague walked past.
I apologise if I managed to drag these randoms across to you in someway.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:13 am
Ah hah! So you’re my jinx are you? :D:D
If you keep this up I’ll have to change your nickname to Bad Luck Bunny! Just kidding, but it is interesting isn’t it, how some patterns seem to hold true despite all logic?
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May 24th, 2018 at 4:56 pm
🙂
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:07 pm
🙂
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May 23rd, 2018 at 1:19 pm
It looks like a scammer. There’s no problem usually as long as you don’t click on one of them or answer it. As far as I know there’s no way of stopping it as you can’t predict what other variations on the address it will send but they generally don’t happen often with luck.
Hugs
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:15 am
-hugs back- I guess it had to be my turn eventually, right? lol They’re all gone now. 🙂
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May 23rd, 2018 at 12:46 pm
I have no idea.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:16 am
Well, whatever they are, they’ve disappeared into the spam filter now! lol
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May 23rd, 2018 at 12:31 pm
I noticed a response to one of the comments I left on your blog from that name, but I haven’t seen anything similar on my site. But I don’t blog often, and I have my comments automatically close after six weeks. That really cuts down on my spam.
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:20 am
Meh, I miss your blogs but I know you’re juggling way too much. Have you managed to think about the next book yet?
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May 24th, 2018 at 8:22 am
Thank you. I have the first draft of the second one in my Benjamin Oris series done, but I’m putting the finishes on another book right now. It’s in a different genre and I hope to pitch it this summer. Then I’ll get back to finishing book two in my series. Hope you’re getting some writing done too!
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May 24th, 2018 at 7:15 pm
Oh that is good news! Two books are always better than one. 🙂
My writing has taken a bit of a detour away from fiction the last year and a half, but I’m enjoying the tech writing as well so I’ll let this phase work itself out then go back to the real fun stuff.
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