Solved

Where do these fake profiles come from?

  • 25 January 2024
  • 13 replies
  • 319 views
K
Rank
Badge

Hello all,

Since January 12 2024 every day there are about 5-7 fake profiles being created in my Klaviyo database. They all have English / American names, e-mail addresses that don’t match the name and location is set to “Germany”. 
Klaviyo does not show any “Activities” for that user and also no source or reference is listed - and yet the profiles are created with full name and e-mail address.
Where do those profiles come from? I do not have a sign up form, other than the checkout in Shopify, that collects Name and E-Mail Address together, but the profiles do not seem to come via Shopify checkout. 

Does anyone have any ideas where they could come from and what I can do to avoid this spam?

Thank you.

 

icon

Best answer by kaila.lawrence 4 March 2024, 16:04

View original

13 replies

stephen.trumble
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +60

Hey @KristinaSchreiner 

Welcome to the Klaviyo Community! Happy to help!

Checkout these other community post on the same topic:

Hope the information in these help!

-Stephen
K
Rank
Badge

Hey @stephen.trumble 
Thanks for your quick reply.

Unfortunately none of those match my problem.

All my lists are double opt-in and the sign ups are not coming from any sign up forms. Only entry filed I have is “e-mail address” and yet the profiles appear with Name and Surname. In addition, on all of the profiles no activities can be found - so I assume they are also not abandoned carts as for those I would see the activity, right?

How are those profiles being entered in my database?

kaila.lawrence
Rank
Userlevel 4
Badge +24

Hey @KristinaSchreiner! I’m stepping in for Stephen here. 

 

Have you taken a peek at the rest of the profile information such as custom properties and the “How they found you” sections? There’s usually clues in there where the profile was referred from.

 

Also, what other integrations are you using in your marketing stack or have you recently switch from? Sometimes in these cases the culprit is a forgotten account somewhere still populating information into Shopify or Klaviyo. 

K
Rank
Badge

 Hey @kaila.lawrence 
Thanks for taking over. 
Yes, that is why I am worried: there is no other profile information. Everything is completely empty for all of those profiles:

There seems to be some Shopify connection, but I am not sure which.
I did some digging and am certain, that there were no intentional changes to our marketing stack. We have added some Klaviyo forms, but none in particular on that day. And also none that collect First Name, Last Name.
The only page where we surface Kalviyo forms is on our Shopify page and we would see the acitiviy in the profile then, right?
Where else could they be coming from? It continues to be 5-7 profiles per day.
Thank you!

kaila.lawrence
Rank
Userlevel 4
Badge +24

Alright, @KristinaSchreiner, I’ve asked around and I’m still stumped so I’m going to pass you along to our Support team to investigate further. You can expect an email from them soon!

N
Rank

Hi, was this issue resolved? I am having the same problem. Started on 28th Feb 2024, and am now up to 20 profiles (12 created on 1st March) with no other data attached to them except location, which are all overseas.

All the profiles email addresses are in a similar format: [name]+[numbers]@[email provider]

Sometimes the same name at the start of the profile, just with different set of numbers after the + symbol in the address.

Cheers

kaila.lawrence
Rank
Userlevel 4
Badge +24

Hey @Nathan Alfrey! Yes, in this particular case it was discovered the profiles were coming from Shopify based on the consent status of “Accepts marketing.” Since they were not confirming their subscription for double opt-in, they were not being added to any lists. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If your profiles also have these properties then it’s likely true for you as well. Unfortunately, Klaviyo can’t see much beyond that so if you still have questions about where they’re coming from please reach out to Shopify support. 

N
Rank

thanks for getting back to me @kaila.lawrence 

It looks like I have a different issue. These profiles have not triggered any data capture other than appearing in our list. They’ve not been active on our site, and no forms submitted. I’ve set up a segment to pick them up so we can manually suppress each day until I can work out a better solution.

We have a separate issue with spam emails channeled through Gorgeous creating profiles, but at least they have some data attached to them - “ticket opened” in Gorgeous. These other ones seem to come out of nowhere.

K
Rank
Badge

Hey @Nathan Alfrey 

The profiles were not active on our site as well. We found out that they came through Shopify. Once I changed the settings there to activate recaptcha for all forms the problem was solved and no additional fake profiles made their way in our database. We were up to 20 profiles a day...

kaila.lawrence
Rank
Userlevel 4
Badge +24

Thanks for the additional context, @KristinaSchreiner! Super helpful.  

H

@Nathan Alfrey we had the same issue with gorgas but made a segment to pull them in and always exclude that segment when sending. When we get a few built up we export the segment and upload it to suppress the profiles.

H

@kaila

Does Klaviyo offer a recapta on the email/sms pop up? I have not noticed the option.

kaila.lawrence
Rank
Userlevel 4
Badge +24

Hey @HKL! Currently, no, though this feature request has already been logged with the product team :)  

 

As a workaround, you could custom code one into your form.

Reply


Most helpful members this week

Terms & ConditionsCookie settings

Links & Resources

Platforms

Partners

Useful Things

About

  • Terms and Privacy
    © 2024 Klaviyo All rights reserved. Klaviyo and the Klaviyo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Klaviyo, Inc. or its affiliates.