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KNOWN ISSUE: Spam Attack

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jimmythejockposted 5 years ago
My Hubs seem to be the target of spammers tonight, anyone else having the same problem?, thank goodness hubpages is recognising the spam before it gets published.....jimmy
Maybe catchpa for non members?
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  Judi Beeposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yes, got two on one hub, minutes apart. Deleted and gone!
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  Pamela N Redposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yes, I thought it was just me. Someone trying to get free publicity. You'd think they would realize it won't work and give up.
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  klarawieckposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yeah! Spam in German! Figures!
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  Rochelle Frankposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I got some German spam too--now if it had been Bratwurst, I would have kept it.
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  quicksandposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  The "content" in Russian and Chinese are represented by the long string of question marks.
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  FatFreddysCatposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Just found a long, rambling comment (it had to be ten or twelve paragraphs long) on one of my movie Hubs that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand, so I guess that means they got me too!
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yep, I had a load of these, extremely lengthy posts consisting of tonnes of spam links. Fortunately my comments are all set to not be seen until approved by me, so I got to delete them all unseen, but there must have been at least 15 such 'comments' on various hubs, often more than 3 on one Hub.
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  snakeslaneposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I was baffled by a comment left today on one of my hubs. Saw the delete forever option which I had not seen before, did that, and then wondered if I should have reported the comment. Now I see it's site wide, and there are filters in place. Good to know thanks.
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  Dale Hydeposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I have been following this, but no evidence on my hubs yet as to receiving emails or notifications of comments. I have not had the time, nor will have the time, to review each individual hub for comments however until the weekend.
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  Randy Godwinposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  You don't have to, Dale. Got to Hubs->Comments->Moderate and you can delete them from there without having to chase them down one by one.
  
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  moonlakeposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Had spam today also.
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  SirDentposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Kudos to HubPages spam filter. I got a bunch o9f spam co9mments also but the filter blocked them from being seen. Way to Go HubPages.
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  WannaB Writerposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Seems like every time I look at my email I'm notified of more of these -- mostly on two hubs in the technical topic. So far I've seen the long comments in German and Italian, as well as in English. I'm also getting the ones that are mostly question marks. I'm getting very tired of deleting these, but I, too, am glad HubPages is filering them as spam so they don't get seen by the public.
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  Missing Linkposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I'm having problems also. It is adversely affecting me.
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  Chris Achilleosposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Had one on one of my hubs and have deleted it.
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  Cardisaposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I haven't had a chance to check my account regularly this past week and lo and behold there were over 100 spam comments on various hubs. I deleted them all and place the "only signed in users can comment" moderation on. I hate doing that because some of my visitors leave genuine comments. Apparently these people realized that my hubs were not being monitored and too advantage of the situation.
  
  I think it would be a good idea to also check you Adsense account for weird activity just to make sure.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Why? Just set it to "comments must be approved before appearing".
  
  Did you notice that nearly all the spam comments were caught by the spam filter anyway? So other than having to go through and "delete forever", it's not causing a lot of extra work, and if they never appear on your Hubs, they're not harming your account in any way.
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  Cardisaposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Hey Marisa, I just worry that those bots might also work against Adsense too. I noticed increased activity this past week so I emailed Google. Might be nothing. I also did have my settings to be approved before appearing but I am a worry wort!
  
  I did delete all the spam the hard way ...lol
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  David 470posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yeah, I had a bunch of spam comments stuff like
  
  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz1957..............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzznike shoes.....etc..
  
  It's making me angry because I had about 15 spam comments all at once that were very long....I thought they were going to be actual comments, but they were not...
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  breakfastpopposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I too am getting some horribly weird posts from unknown sources.
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wavegirl22posted 5 years ago
awww Jimmy no likey spam. .
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  jimmythejockposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Hey Wave girl sending you some love across the pond 80)
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  wavegirl22posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  love my jimmy always and forever
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Cagsilposted 5 years ago
Yes, I had a bunch of SPAM on one of my hubs, and the same person posted single SPAM comments on two other hubs.

I received the email notification about the comments, but when I checked my comments, I had none. So I traveled to the hub(s) and found them, delete Forever them.

Apparently HubPages identified them as SPAM and not real comments.
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  jimmythejockposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Hey Casgil you don't have to go to Hubs, there is a drop down in comments that you click on and it shows you spam.....jimmy
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  paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Hey, thanks for this, I didn't know. Found a whole bunch. Half were spam and half were falsely accused.
  
  http://hubpages.com/my/hubs/comments?co … ilter=Spam
  
  edit: actually, more like 80% were spam.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yeah--I also found about 4 "falsely accused" .. as well as a couple that were not technically 'spam' but simply stupid remarks only marginally related (by stretching the definition of 'related') to the topic.
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  Uninvited Writerposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I just did that. I have about 6 or 7.
  
  I also found a comment that was made 3 years ago but was not spam but marked as spam...oops
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  Blake Flanneryposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I got a bunch of these too, but HP took care of them for me, except one or two. Very similar IP's were used.
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  Trish_Mposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Interesting. I have had to sort all of mine out. How does HP deal with this, please?
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  Trish_Mposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I have changed my comments response, so that they now have to be checked before appearing.
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Gordon Hamiltonposted 5 years ago
Jimmy, I was just about to start a thread on this when I noticed yours. One Hub is getting blasted with comments which are long and comprised mainly of question marks with links randomly included. Strange that the "name" is different in each instance. Poorly executed auto-spam, maybe?
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  jimmythejockposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  mine are the same Gordon, I have had about 15 of them so far.....jimmy
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Uninvited Writerposted 5 years ago
I know it's off topic but I can't get the main page of the forum to load, I can only get into the forums through direct links.
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JKennyposted 5 years ago
Yep, saw a spam comment on one of my hubs, something about payday loans- deleted it less than five seconds later.
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  alexadryposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Got 7 on one hub and several on others. most are about designer handbags:( Many had the ip address 175.44.27.23, I googled it and appears to be a spammer's ip address.
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  That IP address sounds familiar to the one I 'semi' made a note of mentally when deleting the multiple spam on my hubs tonight.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I'm not seeing IP addresses--just gobbledygook bogus "names" ...
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 5 years ago
I quit counting! I have been hitting the "DELETE FOREVER" key all day, so now I am breaking for lunch with my lovely and talented hubby.
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Alastar Packerposted 5 years ago
Got one about expeditions or something to Venus in 1761-69 and gobbledegook about the mesosphere and globe transits. Nike links were under all three paragraphs.
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leahleflerposted 5 years ago
I got spammed, too - glad to see I wasn't the only one. One was simply a comment filled with ???????????????????????? and the others were nonsensical.
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  paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I got a bunch of those too.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Got a bunch of ???? and in between, promotion designer handbags, luggage and fragrances.... Sheesh.
  Several in German as well, and one in some language not readable on this site, as it was all just a bunch of little squares.
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Uninvited Writerposted 5 years ago
I think the question marks are probably in Chinese
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  paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Good theory!
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Len Cannonposted 5 years ago
Yeah, I think I've gotten like 10 in the last three hours. So disappointing to get so many new comments and realize none of them are legit.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I hear you on that one, Len... such a letdown. It's fun to interact with legit commenters.
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IzzyMposted 5 years ago
Me too, luckily HP detected them as spam so just had to hit the delete forever button.
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cocopremeposted 5 years ago
Yup. Me too. Been deleted comments for hours.
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Reality Bytesposted 5 years ago
I learned how to find spam comments without searching through each hub. I had a lot of spam. I thought I was being ignored by the spammer. I wasn't!
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paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago
Looks like that filter is really earning its keep today.
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Uninvited Writerposted 5 years ago
It's still going on I got two more
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paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago
I also just got 2 more. Spam filter auto-exterminated both of them.
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 5 years ago
Left for lunch and came back to 33 spam comments from non-Hubbers. They have attacked three of my hubs. Maybe I should collect them before doing a mass DELETE FOREVER??? How does one use the spam filter, Paradigmsearch? I don't even know if I have one.
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  HP have the Spam filter, it just means the comment shows as spam at the bottom of the comment. All you have to do is decide if it is or not, and if it is hit the 'delete forever' button, and if not hit the 'not spam' button, and then the 'approve' button.
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  PegCole17posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Does a comment show up to the rest of the world before we find it and decide to delete it? A comment on one of my hubs was full of four letter words and suggestive phrases and links. I hit the delete forever button that was below it.
  
  Since then I've changed the setting to 'approve before posting'. I never had that kind of a comment here before.
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  If HP has already automatically categorized it as spam, I don't believe it shows up unless you override the the fact it has been designated as spam, and change it to an approved status. If it has not been designated as spam it will show up to the world, unless you have your comments set to 'approve before posting' as you have now done. You should therefore be okay now
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  PegCole17posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Thanks Misty. I may go in and change my default settings on all comments to "approve before displaying". This is good enough reason.
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 5 years ago
These spammers have fallen in love with three of my Hubs because they keep hitting.
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Froggy213posted 5 years ago
Wow--they have attacked terribly. I had to delete about 30 spam comments.
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  Froggy213posted 5 years ago in reply to this
  In just the time I posted this I had 4 more and 1 got through as not spam
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 5 years ago
This reminds me of grade school and writing C.V. on my palm. Now, I need a "Cootie Vaccination" for spam!!!
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Randy Godwinposted 5 years ago
Go to Hubs->comments->filter, Arlene!

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  christopherantonposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I’m glad to see I'm not the only one. I've deleted about 50 spam, since this morning. Many of the more just a series of question marks and some of them seemed to be advertising websites that sold shoes. They are a right nuisance. I hope the perpetrators get fed up soon and I hope they are not automatically been generated.
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paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago
The party continues. 3 more critters just showed up.

And here's the spam-finder-killer link for thos who don't know. http://hubpages.com/my/hubs/comments?co … ilter=Spam
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MyWebsposted 5 years ago
The spammers have left me over 10 so far. I hope they give up soon. I'd bet many hubbers don't have to approve comments before they are posted so their tactics are probably working on at least some hubs.
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paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago
They're multiplying. 2 more. That filter really is coming through here; it's catching them all.
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paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago
I just did the "Disable any further comments from being posted". Someone remind me to undo it tomorrow.
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Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 years ago
Today, I have a significant amount of spam from China, but yesterday it was from anonymous people in USA.
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  paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  That makes me suspect infected computers. Looks like we may be dealing with professional hackers here. I've also deleted all my links on my profile page.
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  rebekahELLEposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I just got one from China after I read one of your hubs!
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  Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  O no! did you catch it from me?
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prettydarkhorseposted 5 years ago
Hackers everywhere. I read in the news that LinkedIn, e-harmony and even porn sites passwords are being hacked. In other news, "people who work at the White House were among those targeted by the China-based hackers who broke into Google Inc.'s GOOG -0.40% Gmail accounts, according to one U.S. official" - WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 … 57124.html

What is happening to the cyber world? More regulation in the offing by the gov't?

And here in HP, I deleted more than 50 spams so far I think. Maybe we have a glitch here and HP staff needed to fix the filter that is why there are many spam comments from different IP addresses. Still some spams are on the loose and get away with the filter. Or it can be real hackers and spammers.

I changed my comments setting :

Yes to both until tomorrow.

1 Disable any further comments from being posted
2 Comments must be approved before they appear
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Oh, just GREAT! Pffft...
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Sinea Piesposted 5 years ago
Me too. Several long comments on the same hub. Deleted forever.
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 5 years ago
Thank you, Randy, Paradigmsearch and Paul from HubPages staff. Done! What a relief.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
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  Randy Godwinposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I don't know if it gets all of it, but the filter helps! Spam does leave a bad taste in one's mouth, though! But if traffic keeps tanking I might just be glad to see some for the numbers, if for nothing else.
  
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AliciaCposted 5 years ago
The spam filter is doing a great job at realizing that my comments which have links are spam, but it didn’t recognize that a comment that didn’t have a link was spam. That comment was referring to sunglasses, but also to a script that “aids you to assist you to control Wp consumer accounts. Achievable to alteration users' details, exactly which includes password” and then "Right after this, have the ability to take advantage of these account time for obtain Wordpress".
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Peggy Wposted 5 years ago
The same thing is happening to many of my hubs. Crazy! Sometimes words (that make little sense and have nothing to do with the hub) are left and other times a series of question marks or other marks are left. Thank heavens HP is recognizing many of them as spam.
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Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 years ago
Bump
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CASE1WORKERposted 5 years ago
I had 3 last night before I went to bed; now bright and early on a wet Friday morning I have to clear the spam filters of a lot of dross- well at east the filters got the lot!
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  Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Yes, all of a sudden I received several dozen.
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CASE1WORKERposted 5 years ago
oh my, and they hit my second account too! iDIOTS!
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2patriciasposted 5 years ago
I am wondering if there is some sort of Spam festival going on! I think this is an all time record. Getting several paragraphs - sometimes nonsense, others all question marks. Then it ends with a link to a website. Not always the same website.
The consistent factor = annoyance here.
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fordieposted 5 years ago
Yep - have seen 3 today. They seem to be looking for dormant accounts
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  WannaB Writerposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  One hub they hit is one that is very popular. The other isn't quite as popular. Both are technical hubs. My account is far from dormant, and it's being hit.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Agreed, WannaBWriter--I was hit hard yesterday, and my account is nowhere near dormant.
  I resorted to changing my global settings to "only registered users may comment." That will definitely end the problem for you.
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sofsposted 5 years ago
I have had to 'deleteforever' six comments this morning. Four in German and two in Dutch... They don't seem to be filtered as spam. Another hubber has been spamming me in a couple of Hubs.. grr...
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Moon Daisyposted 5 years ago
Yes, me too. I got a few last night then a load more this morning. They sound similar to everyone else's. Don't understand the point of them as they seem to be mostly a load of random words and phrases with some links. (Don't know why that would persuade anyone to click on them, lol!)
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  Moon Daisyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  And just got another one. Some of them don't even have links attached, so what is the point of them? <confused>
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I think if you look closely (not that any of us are interested in what these morons have to say), you'd find "disguised links," not formatted as such, but clearly a pointer to a particular website.
  Since scattered in through all the nonsense gobbledygook are multiple mentions of particular "brand-name" (knock-offs, no doubt) merchandise.
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jimmythejockposted 5 years ago
been getting hit all morning with them, every few minutes, its getting very annoying now.....jimmy
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  Gordon Hamiltonposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Just signed on to find 36 from when I cleared everything and went to bed at 3am, Jimmy. Definitely getting irritating.
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Steve Lensmanposted 5 years ago
I've been getting spam too, deleted three in the past few minutes.
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2patriciasposted 5 years ago
Still they keep coming - the spammers, I mean.
I read a suggestion above the question marks are Chinese. In between the question marks are recognisable brand names.
It is disappointed to see that we have been left new comments only to find more spam.
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Uninvited Writerposted 5 years ago
I had a whole whack. Until this passes I am not accepting comments and I also changed it to only signed in users can post which I think I will keep after.
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Peggy Wposted 5 years ago
Thanks for this link:

"And here's the spam-finder-killer link for thos who don't know. http://hubpages.com/my/hubs/comments?co … ilter=Spam"

Just deleted a BUNCH more but also found some that had gone into the spam folder from HP authors that were NOT spam. So this is a helpful link to check once in a while.
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Pamela99posted 5 years ago
I posted the same problem as I didn't see this posting. I had 17 just on one hub. Can't you stop comments on some of these hubs that are older and have a lot of comments anyway? I have been deleting for 2 days now and yes it is very annoying.
I have tried Peggy's solution and it does make dealing with the problem much easier.
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  DzyMsLizzyposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  Pamela99--Yes, you can. Either in the edit mode on the hub itself, or from the comments global settings in the "my account" section, you can choose to stop accepting comments for that hub.
  I did not want to do that, so I changed my settings to "only registered users may comment."
  Hopefully, this storm will blow over soon.
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mistyhorizon2003posted 5 years ago
Sigh, went to bed around 05.00am having deleted about 25, then woke up again at 13.45 to find another 45 to delete my way through.
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DonnaCSmithposted 5 years ago
same here
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Tom Koeckeposted 5 years ago
Not only was I spammed, but they didn't show up as comments that needed to be approved. I just happened to see one in the feed.
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  andyozposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  I've had the same thing. I think this means that they get spotted as spam so don't actually make it onto our Hubs.
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moonlakeposted 5 years ago
Their still coming on my hubs. First I was getting really nasty comments now I'm getting spam. Last one was from Gofoffedialot.
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Patty Inglish, MSposted 5 years ago
bump
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  SirDentposted 5 years ago in reply to this
  zit
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