Strange customer names in customer list

WiseOldJo
Tourist
5 0 4

Hi, 

 

I keep having these random collections of letters/numbers appearing as customer names from sign up forms. They're coming from my Shopify sign up forms and I'm getting LOADS of them! My sign up form and pop up require a first name so I don't know what's happening... can anybody suggest what they might be? The emails are valid emails and not spam. 90% of people signing up on the forms are appearing correctly with real first names. Any ideas will be welcome as I'm completely stuck. 

 

Thanks, Jo

 

random letters and numbers for names.png

Replies 19 (19)

Smockamole
Tourist
3 0 2

I have the same problem and was looking for a solution or reason.  The odd string of characters for the name is a real problem because they automatically get imported into my mailing list (3rd party app) and then my mailing list has a bunch of "contacts" with first names that make no sense!  There are so many of them that I don't think it's the result of people signing up for our newsletter or for an account on our website because a real first name is needed!  Where are they coming from and how do I deal with them?  HELP!Screen Shot 2019-07-22 at 10.59.16 AM.png

 

WiseOldJo
Tourist
5 0 4

Hi Smockamole,

 

I still haven't managed to resolve it. I'm still getting the names cropping up but am now pretty certain they're spam so am deleting them as I go. It's pain to be honest because it also means I have to check my third party mailing list (Omnisend) that they've then been deleted there. I haven't managed to get any resolution for this either via Omnisend or Shopify. If you manage to find a solution, let me know!

Smockamole
Tourist
3 0 2

@WiseOldJo wrote:

Hi Smockamole,

 

I still haven't managed to resolve it. I'm still getting the names cropping up but am now pretty certain they're spam so am deleting them as I go. It's pain to be honest because it also means I have to check my third party mailing list (Omnisend) that they've then been deleted there. I haven't managed to get any resolution for this either via Omnisend or Shopify. If you manage to find a solution, let me know!


I was thinking they're spam as well, but wasn't sure.  How would they become a "customer" with just an e-mail and receive that odd coded name?  It must be a function of Shopify somewhere in their system.  I certainly hope they reply with an explanation or solution.  I feel your pain because now I have to go through and delete them from my 3rd party mailing list as well and currently I have over 200 of them in my list which could end up costing me money if I go over my available number of customers!  I don't even know how often I need to go through the process of checking and deleting these entries!  Do you check it regularly?  It seems that I get at least a couple a week although I haven't paid too close attention to the frequency of it yet, but I will.

WiseOldJo
Tourist
5 0 4

To be honest, the number of new customers I get day to day is still relatively low, so I get to check them and delete them daily. When my numbers are higher, this is going to be more problematic. I get roughly between 2-10 of them per week at the moment. I kind of gave up on asking for support as there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between Shopify and Omnisend and it just wasn't getting resolved. If i'd put more energy and time into it, i might have gotten further but I have other priorities and will have to go back to it again at some point.

Smockamole
Tourist
3 0 2

I'll keep plugging away to see if there's an explanation or solution and try to post it here if I get something!

Joe_Waller
Visitor
1 0 0

I've been seeing this on a client's site. We've had more than forty of these show up in the past three days. Searching the web hasn't resulted in any useful info.

 

I'd sure like to know what they are and how to handle them.

stats
Shopify Expert
3 0 0

We've also been experiencing this issue. The user never inputs an address, yet the email addresses appear to be genuine. Has anyone received a response from Shopify on the matter?


Thanks


@Joe_Waller wrote:

I've been seeing this on a client's site. We've had more than forty of these show up in the past three days. Searching the web hasn't resulted in any useful info.

 

I'd sure like to know what they are and how to handle them.


 

ShopProtector
New Member
17 0 0

Hi everyone,

You could use Shop Protector app for this. 

There are 2 products, broken up by plan type, for SP (Shop Protector). SP Basic focuses on form spam and fake account creation. 

SP+ has this functionality too but adds the ability to configure rules to protect against bot-based checkouts, customize risk analysis settings, how to handle auto-cancellation, bulk cancellations, and much more coming soon!

We have also fixed an issue of legit customers being blocked on SP+

bikeman9999
Visitor
2 0 1

I have used shop protect for more then 2 years and we still get the same first name last name spam customers being created at a rate of a hundred a day having to be deleted.  do any of you know the solution.

Zach-LOQI
Visitor
1 0 0

Same issue here started 4 days ago for us.

Coincidentally, we have a customer with a strange tag that popped up on the same day.

It's not possible for customer to tag themselves, so this is very unsettling.

 

Anyone else see super weird tag, or even this customer? Maybe they are related.

 

Screen Shot 2019-10-17 at 3.20.55 PM.png

parts
Tourist
5 0 5

Can't begin to tell you how frustrating it is to delete.

 

No Shopify support reading this?

 

Screenshot_2019-10-22 1200s com ~ Customers ~ Shopify.png

choedeci
Visitor
2 0 0

Has anyone found a reason/solution for this? I'm seeing quite a lot of these showing up in my email lists and my referral programs and am concerned here.

RMFullerton
Tourist
4 0 2

Hi 

choedeci
Visitor
2 0 0

Thanks! Can you explain in more details about your last statements about skipping accelerated checkouts? Also, do you know why folks would have bots doing this to us? I can see how it could affect our deliverability rates with email but other than that?

RMFullerton
Tourist
4 0 2

I have no idea what folks get out of having bots do this.  Bored kids learning to use bots?  Some nefarious game where getting updates from thousands of small businesses wins you points?  Gremlins on the internet? Really no idea. 

Accelerated checkout is explained here.  It's a button feature using Paypal Express, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay or Shop Pay that allows checkout directly from a product page or the cart without going through the normal Shopify checkout process.  For the subject of this thread, it's not relevant.  I just wanted to make the distinction between Shop Protector Basic and Plus.  Shop Protector's Basic plan solved my problem of bot use of contact and customer registration forms. 

Shop Protector's Plus plan deals with a different kind of bot that makes use of accelerated checkout to buy out a hot product.  These bots are used by resellers to buy up limited quantity products and resell them at a markup.  Pumpkin Spice Spam was such a situation if you want to look up an example -- a $4 limited quantity item bought out by resellers in an hour on the day of issue, and then resold on ebay, etc for $25.  If you don't carry that sort of trendy, limited quantity product and you like having accelerated checkout available to customers then Shop Protector's Plus plan may not be for you.  See more at my app review for Shop Protector, and the informative response from Human Presence who make it. 

AnneW
Tourist
3 0 3

5 years later...still happening. I have to delete 20-40 customers every day to keep my accounts clean. 

RMFullerton
Tourist
4 0 2

This started happening on my store site 3 days ago.  I have a very low traffic site, and the number of accounts added in 3 days suggests that Shopify captured the email of each visitor and signed them up for an account accepting marketing.  Each account has only an email, a random string for first and last names, and a yes for accepting marketing.  All email addresses are NOT random strings, and appear genuine.  Today I received an unhappy email response to a new account welcome email from one of these people saying she had not authorized or requested anything, and requesting removal.  This is obviously entirely unacceptable, and it is past time for some Shopify support attention to this issue.

RMFullerton
Tourist
4 0 2

After some more testing and research I will get off my high horse.  I visited my store site from a different Chrome account, unregistered in my Shopify store.  No new customer account was created with the email address from which I was visiting.  This may be a new form of spambot account creation using emails harvested from the web.  Purpose of which is to later sell store site owners a means of preventing it?  I can only guess.  Googling the emails of the new customer accounts shows that they are real, but often don't fit my typical demographic.  There are various threads on these forums for stopping account creation spam, stopping spambot registration, etc.  Solutions appear to be using a captcha or moving the sign in option from the homepage to the checkout.  Here's a recent thread with active Shopify Support input.

ppc_ninja
Visitor
2 0 6

We're also experiencing this issue with a client. Since 8/13/20 (about 3 months), more than 1,000 of these "customers" have been created. Are there any common 3rd-party apps we're all using here to help narrow down the cause? Possibly Swell Rewards?