John Smith From Google - UTM Google Shopper - Creating false abandoned carts

ingramleedy
Visitor
3 0 20

I am using Google Shopper to push our products from Shopify store into Google Shopper.  Google Shopper seems to have a bot that constantly crawls our products, adds an item to a cart, goes to check out and creates an account variant of "John Smith" - johnsmith+1222@gmail.com or some other number.    

 

Shopify doesn't track user-agent or IP address for abandoned orders. So I installed 3rd part apps to discover and found the IP addresses all belong to the Google IP allocation.  

 

It's frustrating as this is creating many abandoned carts which throw off the statistics and analytics for the site, creating accounts, kicks off automation scripts, etc, etc, etc.  

Does anyone else have this issue?   

-Ingram

 

 

Replies 117 (117)

Shawn_Bercuson
Visitor
1 0 3

Yes! I've been experiencing the same thing. It's incredibly frustrating. I reported it to Shopify customer service and here is their response:

 

And with regards to John Smith, I spoke to my Team and because these orders are abandoned carts, there's nothing that is happening that is currently negatively harming your shop, but you could definitely look into blocking his IP address. I believe you'd be able to track his IP using Google Analytics and then use a tool like Traffic Guard to block or this app here seems to track & give the option to block as well, IP Log.

No very helpful. If you figure out a way to combat this, please let me know. 

 

Cesaru14
Visitor
1 0 3
I have just got the same issue. This bot is creating abandoned checkouts everyday... Is getting me mad. Any solution found??
pakt2019
Visitor
2 0 2

Any luck addressing this? We are having the same issue. 

seanphurley
Visitor
2 0 8

What's the latest on this? I have a client for whom this is a material issue.

mattnight99
Tourist
5 0 11

I've got this too....anyone got any ideas what this is? Is is harmful?

kredingt
Visitor
2 0 1

I had the same problem when I ran a giveaway. A Mark Mustermann with an email address of fake10349 at fakemail.com and a Google address of 

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway First floor, mountain view, California, United States, 94043. He entered my giveaway over 25 times throwing everything off. I had to go through and manually remove him from my email list. I even noted on the giveaway that it could be entered only once per person.

I noticed today he was back and left his information again. He changes the number series in the email so it is different every time. It is very frustrating and with Klaviyo they charge me by the profile, so a bunch of junk profiles increases my bill. 

Do you think if I reach out to Google they will do anything?

 

kredingt
Visitor
2 0 1

I tried to contact Google One who said they could not help me but gave me this link to ask for help. I guess I'll see if they really help or pass the buck.

https://support.google.com/domains/gethelp

 

James155
Visitor
2 0 4

I have the same issue. Any update on this? This is really bad.

Skugoo
Visitor
1 0 2
Same issue on my store. Anyone figured out how to deal with it yet?

Kyle_Russell1
Tourist
5 0 9

Yup, same problem here. For us it started on Nov 11, 2019 and since then we've gotten 206 abandoned carts from "John Smith", address 

 

John Smith

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
mountain view CA 94043
United States
(650) 253-0000

 

which is the GooglePlex address and one of Google's support phone numbers and the email address is always some variation of:

 

johnsmithus65@gmail.com
johnsmithus20@gmail.com
johnsmith.us82@gmail.com
johnsmith.us5@gmail.com
john.smith.us50@gmail.com

 

Unfortunately, I don't think we as shop owners have any way to combat it without some back-end help from Shopify. I'd love to be wrong though so if anyone has a fix, I'm all ears!

mattnight99
Tourist
5 0 11

Come on Shopify! Look how many people are having this issue. Must be a way to block it.

rseabrook
Shopify Partner
18 0 14

All of the abandoned carts in Shopify are mildly annoying, but I don't think they are harming our store.

 

However, we use Klaviyo as our ESP. Every abandoned cart becomes a profile in Klaviyo and also receives an abandoned cart email sequence. This is causing harm in two ways:

  1. Klaviyo charges by the profile, so a bunch of junk profiles inflates our bill.
  2. Sending emails to un-monitored inboxes can hurt deliverability for our entire account.

Does anyone know WHY these abandoned carts are created? Is it legitimate Googlebot traffic? I have read that it could be Google automatically verifying that shipping costs in your store match what is submitted through Google Merchant Center.

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6

They definitely skew our statistics regarding abandoned carts and "Customer numbers". We have had trouble with this for the past year. Shopify will not help. They keep giving links to apps that do not address the problem.

DHDLLC
Visitor
2 0 0
I believe it is a way they are using to look through our stores to ensure everything reads and looks according to what they are comfortable advertising. There is no other way to ensure that the information is correct other than our website. You can’t get to the policy in some stores without making it to check out and registering as a customer.

It is super annoying and can throw your conversion off as they sometimes check multiple times in a day making it appear as if you have more traffic then you may. There should be a way to block it and I’m confident Shopify knows how. But ruffling the feathers of their partnership with Google is more important to them then the conversion of the customers who help them make the money they pay Google. So if you get a hold of the ip, block those as they come in.
Angela_Hardiman
Excursionist
42 0 53

Here is something you should put into your Terms and Conditions page which we have in our bulleted list and update your last revision date.  If google visits our site and then repeatedly does this it will be on record that they are breaking our Terms and Conditions as of that date and thereafter.  

 

  When you use the Web Site or mobile applications, you may not: 

  • as a company place items in shopping cart repeatedly under an alias name and email address and abandon them as a means to compile or verify information. 
AlwaysAmazing
Visitor
2 0 0

Great idea! I’ve just added that to my site and it is live now in the terms and service page. Thanks for the suggestion. 

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6
Well, I certainly hope you have very deep pockets to fight a legal battle
with Google!
bigbol5
Visitor
1 0 0

Same issue on my store. Anyone figured out how to deal with it yet?

Garry46
Tourist
8 0 7

alright, so my store has caught the john smith bug as well.Untitled-2.jpg
john-smith.jpggoogle.jpg
Despite his customer info all pointing towards google, this bot has nothing to do with google. 
I performed a reverse image search to see if I could trace it back to anything that might tell us anything about what's going on. I found some interesting results. 

First of all, surprise-surprise, that image was taken from an actual person that exists online and is probably completely unaware. I may pick up one of his books after this.
todd-harra.jpg
The interesting thing that I found was a quora.com user account associated with the same image as "john smith".
Untitled-5.jpg
This account responds to people on Quora about airline related things in order to promote its scam airline ticket site. I looked flightschannel up on bbb.org. There is an LLC filed, but the operation uses a forwarding address in Nevada as it's company address. Also, according to most reviews online, its a bait and switch scam with foreign accents. 
uh.jpgUntitled-6.jpg

Conclusion:
John Smith is not Google. If its the same scammers as flightschannel.com, the are probably working outside of the US despite my Shopify store not detecting a VPN. It is possible that the same AI is being used by different people, though. Either way, would appreciate a fix.


TylerAtSmithTea
Visitor
2 0 4

Yes! This is the detective work we need.

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6

Someone mentioned their Klaviyo account and customer numbers. We have Klaviyo as well. Although it is a pain, we can go in and remove all the John Smith customers.

 

Here is something I am wondering about however. How is this "person" getting to our stores? Is it possible that there is PPC fraud going on here?  a click or 2 to get to our store is one thing, but hundreds of clicks adds up to a chunk of change down the drain.

 

Is there a way to find out if these visits are coming to us through PPC?  If so, I would think Google would want to get involved in this.

Garry46
Tourist
8 0 7

I'm not sure if it's PPC fraud because they never arrive there from google. 
not-ppc.jpg

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6
How can you tell if they arrive there from Google?
Garry46
Tourist
8 0 7

According to Lucky Orange they arrived there from "direct link", whereas others such as the non-john-smith examples in that screenshot arrived via google ppc.

DHDLLC
Visitor
2 0 0
Whoa!

Okay, so share what you think the goal is here. Trolling other emails? Trying to mimic our sites to create others hoping people accidentally click on it and input their information?! My mind is reeling now.
startfitness
Visitor
1 0 1

its 1 million percent google. you run pla ads or smarts or PM ads. yeah !

so they check the delivery costs and the offers in place are actually in place. 

its Google.

AutoParts
Tourist
3 0 3

It's not fraud. It is a Google shopping. What they are doing is testing that your shipping rates match what is in your google shopping feed. 

 

the reasons they do this is some unscrupulous companies will put free shipping in their shopping feed, to make them rank higher in google shopping but in actuality charge customers for shipping. 

 

Once Google catches them doing this they block the products or the entire feed from google shopping. 

 

The "John Smith"  bot is adding parts to your cart to see your shipping charges. There is no other way to know the actual charges that a customer would pay. 

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6

How do you know that this is that case? I talked to Google Shopping and they denied this practice.

Garry46
Tourist
8 0 7

aga


@Michele_Carr wrote:

How do you know that this is that case? I talked to Google Shopping and they denied this practice.


yeah and i've already found correlations with a scam airline service.

not saying were getting abandoned carts from a scam airline service, but this bot used the same fake picture and name. 

Everest
Visitor
2 0 0

This was our first thought as well, but can you verify this info?

I'd like to block the user, but only if it will not interfere with Google verifying our products. 

Tracy_Fuentez
Tourist
6 0 0

If this is the case wouldn't a few of these abandoned carts be sufficient rather than 100's of them????

AVL
New Member
7 0 0
You would think so but I've seen across clients anywhere from 18 per day to
83 per day depending on the size of the catalog. Even in brands that offer
free shipping on all orders, I have seen the bot activity. They will check
for pricing and discount pricing as well. ESPs block suspicious activity so
Google gets around it with creating multiples. A Gmail email won't record
periods but platforms do. Ex. john.smith@gmail.com will go to the same
inbox as johnsmith@gmail.com
Unboxllc1
Shopify Partner
2 0 0

It's Google.  I am trying to find out why they're doing it.   

Address1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View CA 94043-1351 
   Address Verified (AS01) No mail delivery (AS17)
Property InformationOwner: Google Inc
MAK (Melissa Address Key)2631048415      Personator Search by MAK
Lat. & Long.37.422035 -122.084345 Geocoded to Rooftop Level (GS05)
Address TypeBusiness
Postal Carrier RouteC909      (DPC: 00-0 )      Map
Picasette
Visitor
3 0 0

any updates? I wonder if we are all in similar industries...

There must be a reasoning behind this and I'm sure it's not good for us somehow.

Live-by-skin
Visitor
1 0 0
Oh my gosh this just happened to me for the first time! Same address. I’m creeped out!
CD27
Visitor
2 0 1
Ok so I have a solution. You can find his IP address by installing Lucky Orange and viewing a hit on your site. Then install Traffic Guard And you can block the IP address
steve012
Visitor
2 0 0

Do you happen to have an IP address for him, he has hit me twice and I would like to use your method and block him. BTW for some reason sales drop for 3 days after he does his cart abandonment crap.

 

Steve

CD27
Visitor
2 0 1
There are actually quite a few you need to check which ones he is using for
you. I can have a range of 200 numbers. I suggest you use a tool to track
otherwise it has no impact. You can download a free trial of Lucky Orange
for 7 days and that will give you enough info
DaveBC
New Member
4 0 0

It's not a person who's doing it.  It's a generic placeholder email that Google shopping is putting through.  It's an annoyance but it's not affecting your sales.  

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6
No, but it does skew our analytics and it does affect those of us who have
apps that charge by visitor metrics. It is not all about sales and it is
not something to just be shrugged off.
DaveBC
New Member
4 0 0

Nobody is shrugging it off.  Just stating facts that it's not affecting your actual sales as someone has eluded to. 

TailoredRough
Visitor
1 0 0

Its not about the sales, or not only about the sales.  The metrics need to be accurate and right now we’re getting unreal traffic and abandoned carts shoved down our throats.  Is there not a way that Shopify can  run this metric for google on an offline db and send it to them?  There have to be backups of or stores which can be used for this.  If Shopify can trust google to poll their network, then google should be able to trust Shopify to submit the necessary data.  

Gia777
Visitor
3 0 0

We received a message from this person/bot through our contact form asking us where our store is located.  Should I reply?

EmmanuelFlossie
Shopify Partner
2953 221 710

Consider treating everyone as a legit customer.

Get in touch with Emmanuel: a Google Shopping Specialist, Google Ads Diamond Product Expert, and also a a Google Product Expert Education 2021 & Tailwind 2023 Award winner.
Need Google Merchant Center or Google Shopping support?.
steve012
Visitor
2 0 0

It is Dave, I have 3 shopify stores and my friends own 8, everyone of them have seen a drop in sales after he visits the sites, this is not just a pipe dream I'm making up. Also I don't believe it's google doing this.

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6
It is a random IP within an array. It is not consistent
Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6

If you list things in Google Shopping you DO NOT want to block these IP addresses. If that is the way Google is validating your items...and if they are blocked from doing so...I suspect you won't show up in Google Shopping any longer and may actually get banned.

Michele_Carr
Excursionist
23 0 6

BTW...has anyone else on this forum been contacted by Wall Street Journal about this situation? It is not just a Shopify store problem. It is pervasive enough that it came to the attention of a WSJ reporter who is doing an investigative piece about it...

EmmanuelFlossie
Shopify Partner
2953 221 710

Hello everyone. Google Shopping Specialist here.

First I want to say, this is indeed another thing we all need to adapt to and make changes to our tracking systems. And in some cases this is causing extra costs, which is very sad.

The reason I am posting here is that I want to inform you to not try to block the bots. Blocking the bots will cause your products to get disapproved or worse your Google Merchant Center account getting suspended. The reason is that blocking users or bots will be a policy violation as per below link.

Quote: Make sure your landing pages always match your products. Show a product on your landing page that is essentially identical to the product in your product data, regardless of the user’s device, browser, location, cookies, your ad targeting choices, or any other consideration.

Reference: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/4752265?hl=en

It is talking about the landing page, but this is also for the checkout.

I'm not saying that you should just let Google cause havoc to your business, I am only replying to avoid you from getting suspended, which is more serious.

Talk to your partners and Shopify to resolve the tracking issues that it is causing. I can see there are already very helpful answers!

Get in touch with Emmanuel: a Google Shopping Specialist, Google Ads Diamond Product Expert, and also a a Google Product Expert Education 2021 & Tailwind 2023 Award winner.
Need Google Merchant Center or Google Shopping support?.