Update to Fake Email Subscriber Post

A few weeks back, I wrote about Why Your Email Subscriber Numbers Aren’t as High as You Think

At the time, a comment was left suggesting using a Captcha as a way to avoid having bots auto-filling the form. As much as I don’t like Captchas, I decided to go that route.

The fake subscribers didn’t stop. So, I decided to look into what was happening and I’ve discovered something troubling. They aren’t filling in the form on the site. They have managed to somehow hack into MailChimp’s API and add users to my list. At least, that’s the only explanation I have. The only place to sign up for the list legitimately is on my site, but when I get more new subscribers in a day than I get visitors to that site, they are not coming in through the form on the site. They must be accessing the list through Mailchimp’s service somehow.

I’ve gotten in touch with Mailchimp to try and see if they will research it on their end. We’ll see what happens!

Follow these topics: Blogging