Bogus customer accounts

[Greg15]

At my Shopify store there is someone who has created over 100 bogus customer accounts - each with a different fake email address.  There are no orders, just bogus accounts.   I have no idea what the purpose of this would be.  Is there a way to deny access to specific domains, such as Fakemail.com?

[Kimi]

Hi, @Greg15.

For context, there are bots that disguise themselves as normal browser traffic that can create multiple customer accounts on stores. To help address this issue, we've noticed that stores on Shopify have experienced reduced fake customer accounts and spam emails by adding a Google reCaptcha to their site. Google reCaptcha helps analyse the behaviour of visitors to online stores and blocks spam from bots. So I highly recommend setting this up on your store if you haven't already done so.

Can you also elaborate what you mean in regards to blocking certain domains? Do you mean to block specific email addresses from being able to create a customer account on your store, or from accessing your storefront altogether?

[Greg15]

Blocking specific email addresses would probably be futile.  I was referring to the domain name in my post such as "Fakemail.com".  Every bogus account had an email address like 12345@fakemail.com, or 98765@fakemail.com.

I will have to look into some examples of the recaptcha.  I have encountered this on some websites and got so frustrated at the complicated process that I gave up on the order.   Thanks for the idea.

[Kimi · Accepted solution]

@Greg15

If your online store is open to the public without any customer login required, there wouldn't be a way to block a group of email addresses that are attached to a specific domain. Because these are also most likely bots, the best way to minimise this issue is to look into adding Google reCaptcha as noted in my earlier reply. Totally understand your concern though in the extra step and process it will add for customers on their end, so as you mentioned you can look into it further first and trial it before committing.

For future reference, if you do happen to come across specific customers from a certain location that are spam in nature and would like to block them from browsing your store, installing an IP blocker app like this one should help.