300 A Day

~ beetleypete

No, not cigarettes. Even when I was a fairly heavy smoker, I couldn’t manage that many.

Spam Comments.

Yes, they are all caught by WordPress, and placed into my Spam Folder. But now they have reached a total of almost 300 a day so far this week, it is impossible to go through them to find any genuine comments in amongst all that rubbish.

Today, I scanned them (288) quickly, just in case. Every single one of them was sent by the same ‘person’. (Undoubtedly not a real person.)

TuyetKaddy
talenteimnetz.dex
vepll6o3h@gmail.com
91.211.88.127

I searched that IP address, and this is who it comes back to.

Current IP Range: 91.211.98.0 – 91.211.98.255
IP Range Location: Ireland
IP Owner: Tsg Interactive Services Limited
Owner Full IP Range:
91.211.96.0 – 91.211.99.255
Owner Address: King Edward Bay Complex, King Edward Road, Onchan, IOM, Im3 1Dz, Isle of Man, British Isles, Isle of Man
Owner Country: Ireland
Owner Phone: +441624632666
All Owner IP Ranges: 91.211.96.0 – 91.211.99.255
All Owner CIDR: 91.211.96.0/22
All Owner IP Reverse DNS (Host)s: 98-23.colo.sta.blacknight.ie
ASN: AS48536
Whois Record Created: 16 Apr 2011

Someone in Ireland, with a company registered on The Isle Of Man. There is even a phone number. (Which I didn’t ring, in case that was also a scam.) It is worth knowing that the .dex domain name is encrypted, and .dex domains are associated with ‘Ransomware’ demands.

So whatever you do, make sure to never click on any links sent by this company. Not ever!

Each comment is so long, consisting of 20-odd lines of nonsense, followed by 16 links to products or services, it took me a full four minutes ten seconds just to delete them by clicking on ‘Empty Spam’. (Yes, I was fed up enough to time it.)

Surely there must be some way that WordPress can block this pest? If I can find out so easily who is responsible, then a company like WordPress must be able to put a stop to them.

Don’t you agree?

(Just after posting this, I checked the Spam Folder. 10 more!)

71 thoughts on “300 A Day”

  6. Mines the same Pete some days it is 500 and as you find it seems to be the same person or persons but I haven’t checked further as you have..I did contact WP and they just said they caught them in spam and not to worry as it wouldn’t affect my blog but if you leave them it takes time to delete them…its beginning to annoy me and if anyone gets caught spam genuinely I’m not to know that…x

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  9. Have you tried entering the spammer’s IP address(es) — or their common part, which seems to be “91.211.9” for most of them, plus “91.211.88.127” as the IP address you looked up — as prohibited terms in your Jetpack settings?

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              1. Good plan. I remember it used to be the only thing that really helped on my very first website, too. It‘s a nuisance to have to look them up — I wish WP had a tool like the admin service I used for that other website had, where you just pasted the spammers‘ URLs into a dedicated „block IP“ form and the admin program did all the rest — but it‘s still good to know that using them as prohibited keywords works as well.

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  12. You have a popular blog!
    Have you checked in the settings (My Sites – Jetpack – Akismet Anti-spam) I have mine checked to silently discard the worst spam so I never see it. I also sometimes add keywords to the Discussion settings, but that can be problematic if there are other genuine words within (such as in and with in that last word) or you could ask WP for help as you have a personal account and should get instant support.

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  15. I’ve been getting hundreds a day too, but I didn’t go into it to find the sender – I just cleared the Spam. But thanks for telling us about .dex, that’s good to know!

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        1. If you add that website to your forbidden words and phrases, they will be sent into the Trash Folder instead, GP. I was able to do that with the IP address numbers of the one that has been bombarding me.
          Best wishes, Pete.

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  18. That is a lot of spam, for sure. I’ve had had periods when I seemed to get a lot, and all from the same address, but never quite that many, but I won’t talk too loudly, because one never knows. I suspect Pit is right, and blocking a single address wouldn’t make a difference, although it is worth asking, just in case. I hope they give you a break. And thanks for the warning, Pete!

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  21. I had the same problem with a guy from India trying to push Cancer cures. WordPress did not respond on how they could stop them. I contacted the address and told the pest to leave me alone, but in much stronger language. He eventually stopped, now I get your regular annoying spam.

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    1. Are you getting this ‘TuyetKaddy’ stuff too? It is very irritating, but I thought it was just me. In some ways, it might be reassuring to know that it is more widespread.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. Yep Pete, I got it too, plus some that were truly absurd. WP needs to fix if at all possible. But then I’m the guy that will talk to spam callers and telemarketers, and ask for their personal home phone and address so I can come pay them a visit during dinner hour.

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  22. I’m sorry to hear this Pete. I know my comments have shown up in your spam file on occasion for only God knows why. This place is about good and evil. Our existence is about interactions that bring us F2F with this reality. Simple as that. The online world is an digital extension of it all. Push back Pete, make a statement of persistent action against it or evil will steal your quiet enjoyment, bringing anger and frustration and finally chaos into your life.

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        1. It could be that. Maybe they target people with over a certain amount of followers, even though at least half of of those followers are other companies trying to sell me stuff! What a merry-go-round. 🙂

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  24. Pete, that is a crazy amount of spam and yikes, 288 from the same address. Yes, one would think WordPress could do more to stop them from getting this far – or do they just want to show how good their program is at catching them all? Good investigation work and thanks for the heads up about dex and ‘ransomware’. I’m paranoid about scams, spam mail etc it’s getting to the stage I end up igrnoring important emails or calls from reputable companies!

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    1. Thanks, Annika. I am not usually too paranoid about emails and domains, as I rarely click on anything unless I know the sender. But this avalanche of Spam from the same so-called ‘company’ is annoying me. I just don’t have the time or the inclination to wade through checking 300+ spam comments a day, in the hope of retrieving a few genuine ones put there by mistake.
      (10 more from the same idiot since I started writing this reply!)
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. Poor you … it is frustrating and time-wasting.

        I’m ‘fighting’ WordPress about unathorised copy of my posts without credit. Not reblogs but just photos and text copied and used by others. A long battle! big sigh

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  25. It’s an absolute nonsense, Pete, I agree. But as to WP/Akismet being able to block them, I’m doubtful. Surely it must be possible to block one certain IP-address, but I think they would just re-appear with a slightly different one, just as it happesn with those da** robocall here in the US. You can block them, but they just change a single digit in their number and appear again on your phone.
    Best,
    Pit

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    1. This has been relentless for some time now, and increasing day by day. I have really had enough of it, but I am not about to try to contact anyone from Ireland who is hiding on the IOM behind .dex domains.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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