Getting anonymouse requests to follow my blog via email

  • Unknown's avatar
    lynnmason2016 · Member ·

    I am getting anonymous requests to follow me via email. The emails I’m getting read “[] is now following your blog.” The email then shows this:

    is now following (my picture is here)

    just started following you at http://lynnmason2014.com. They will receive an email every time you publish a post. Congratulations.

    I checked my site stats to see who had made these anonymous requests. It shows some strange email addresses — all from the same domain name.

    I assume these requests derive from my site’s “follow via email” widget, which I have just taken down in the last few minutes.

    My site is http://lynnmason2014.com/

    Thank you.

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

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Hi Lynn,
    You need Staff help and I’ll tag this thread for them. Please subscribe to the thread so you are notified when they respond and please be patient while waiting.

  • Unknown's avatar
    rachelmcr · Member ·

    Hi there,

    Thanks for letting us know about this. There seems to have been a glitch on our end that sent out this email to a number of users by mistake. Sorry about that!

    We’re investigating why that email went out, but for now you can ignore it. If you receive another email like this, please let me know. Thanks! :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    jowoolf · Member ·

    I have had two similar emails over the last week, telling me that an anonymous follower has just subscribed to my blog – no name, no email address, no IP. My site is http://www.the-hazel-tree.com

  • Unknown's avatar
    rachelmcr · Member ·

    Hi jowoolf, can you let me know the date and time listed on those emails? That will help us investigate when the emails were sent and what caused it on our end. Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    jowoolf · Member ·

    Hi Rachel,
    I binned the first one completely as I suspected it was spam and may have contained a virus. The second one I kept a ‘snapshot’ of and it was received at 03:19 on 27 November. I will send you a copy of this if it would help.
    Kind regards
    Jo

  • Unknown's avatar
    lynnmason2016 · Member ·

    I checked my followers in site stats. The email addresses used to subscribe to my posts have a huge list of random characters before the @, but all come from the same domain.

    They were all sent Nov. 27 — two just after noon; one around 4 pm and another about 6 pm. I then removed the “follow” widget and haven’t had any more since. I could also send a screen shot if needed, as the email addresses are still listed in my followers.

    thanks.

  • Unknown's avatar
    rachelmcr · Member ·

    Thanks for those additional details! After some digging, we found that the email followers you mentioned did cause these emails to go out to a number of users. The format of the email was a bit messed up, but I want to assure you that there’s no problem with your blog. You can safely ignore these email notifications. :)

    Please let me know if you have any other questions!

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