As soon as your blog starts getting serious traffic in the several thousands pageviews a month or more range, you will find that you start getting more and more contact form messages coming through if you have them enabled.
It can be difficult though to sift through these and determine which ones are genuine and which are just spammy “send-to-all” type automated messages, where they are just fishing for sites to respond by sending the same message through a load of different contact forms.
In this article I’m going to list some of the more common contact form scam and spam messages which have come through on my various blogs and niche sites this year. That way you can match up with any contact forms or comments you’ve received if you’re not sure whether to approve or respond to them.
If they’re obviously a scammy or spammy message, or carbon copy “send to all” messages, I’ve put them in here. If they don’t lead to reputable sites where you can actually verify credentials and history, I’ve also included them. I’ll keep adding to them throughout the rest of the year as more spammy messages come through.
1. ForeMedia Ad Exchange Contact Form Messages
This is one that was initially quite convincing to the point I replied to it, but then I saw a carbon copy version come through again, just with the name changed, and I knew it was automated spam, fishing for email addresses and customers.
ForeMedia are an advertising network like Ezoic, Mediavine, etc, where bloggers can sign up and put ads on their website mediated through Google’s Ad Exchange via ForeMedia.
They are a real company and you’ll have to vouch for their legitimacy yourself, but they do send through carbon-copy contact forms that are spammy and not individualized or authentic, which isn’t a good start.
“Hey, I visited your site and I think that your content is amazing! It is really engaging and original, you must have worked so hard to generate such a quality content.
My name is ………. from ForeMedia and I help website owners with great websites to maximize the revenue they make from their website.
I would love to buy Ad Spaces on your website and pay you per each impression of the ads on your site. We are Google Ad Exchange Premium partners and we work with more than 100 Ad Network & thousands of premium direct advertisers who would LOVE to buy Ads directly from your site and we can guarantee to increase your revenue by at least 45% compared to other advertising solutions you are currently using.
You deserve to earn more for your content and maximize your earning potential and I will help you unlock that potential!…I have at least 17 Premium Advertisers that have asked me to approach you because they would like to advertise on your website on Premium eCPM [cost per impressions] basis.”
Whilst it sounds very genuine, I’ve got the same form through a couple of times – it’s always conveniently “17” Premium Advertisers they’ve got lined up every time. It’s a carbon-copy contact form they send out to loads of different blog contact forms, and moreover, they didn’t even respond to my reply the first time, so they’re just fishing for emails, or for customers.
2. Freeleads Spam Messages
Several of my blogs have got multiple contact forms plugging the freeleads.site resource, claiming to get leads for your online business. Here is a typical message I got from them:
“It sucks that now days Google charges so much for clicks, in fact some industries can pay up to $200 for just a click! Insane! Would you like to find out more about advertising that only charges a flat rate for qualified potential buyers sent directly to your website? Let me know in your reply and I’ll send over some details.”
Comments – Again the content of the message gives away the spamminess. My site is a blog and therefore doesn’t need “buyers”, it needs readers. It just shows it up as a carbon copy “send to all” spam message; they aren’t interested in my site individually. Ignore anything that leads off to freeleads.site.
3. Text2Speech “Can’t Read Screen” Spam Message
I have actually deleted all the spam messages from this one, but it was a contact form that came through to several of my blogs in quick succession, claiming to be from someone who had been reading my blog for a while, but couldn’t see the text on the screen because of impaired vision.
The message then recommends me using two linked off resources to get larger text on a screen (text2speech was one, can’t remember the other).
Comments – This message appeared genuine at first, then I saw the exact same carbon copy message coming through on several of my contact forms on different blogs. When they claim to have been reading your blog for 4 months, yet it’s only been online for 2 months, you know the message is a “send-to-all” carbon copy spam message.
They don’t care about your site individually. They’re just trying to force a backlink to the two linked sites, or perhaps they get a commission if you sign up to the service. We advise to ignore the message.
4. Converting Visitors Spam
Here’s another generic spam message that went through a couple of contact forms on several of my blogs. Can’t prove it’s spam 100% but looks like a carbon copy to me:
“For less than $50 monthly I can get thousands of high converting visitors to visit your site. Would you be interested in finding out more? Send a reply here for info: [email protected]”
5. Klippyo/”Last Video Maker You’ll Ever Need” Spam Messages
Here is the general message body:
“Stop Just ‘Making Video’. Start Making Professional Videos. https://videomaker.store”
and also this one:
“Klippyo isn’t just a video maker. It’s EVERY video maker, A Professional Editor That Does It All : https://videomaker.store”
and this one:
“Subject: We’re Here To Show You How To Make Your Videos BETTER with Klippyo!
Message Body:
Stop Just ‘Making Video’. Start Making Professional Videos. https://videomaker.store”
Comments – Again just a carbon copy send to all, came through to several of my different blogs in a short space of time. The message body and contact name and email does change sometimes, but they always link off to videomaker.store. Just fishing – recommend deleting.
6. Klippyo Message Spam
Here is another one of these “we can get you leads” spam messages through the contact form:
“One that will show YOU how to use Klippyo to get big-fish clients, powerful referrals, and a business that lets you take control. You cannot get access to this coaching anywhere else, for any price: https://videocreator.site/”
The same message also came through to another of my blogs, with the title “We want to make you an offer that shouldn’t exist”, again linking to the videocreator site.
Comments – Again a carbon copy spam message. Words like “big fish clients” and “powerful referrals” don’t apply to my blog. It’s just another “send to all” from people who don’t care about your site individually. Recommend deleting.
7. Dan Hart Bulk Comments Messages
This is another one that will come in a lot through contact forms every few months. They are often from a guy called Dan Hart and contain a message something like this:
“Hi, this is Dan with the BulkComments Network.
We want to help you boost your Traffic and Engagement by providing your blog, website or social pages with relevant comments from real people.
This is premium traffic that you can see – traffic that actually does something instead of just run up your stats.”
They then link off to the bulkcomments.net site.
Comments – We cannot say this is a scam or spam as such, since it does lead off to a site which appears legitimate and does offer a paid service. However, it is best to be very wary of anyone trying to sell you SEO methods to try and boost your site rankings which don’t involve pure SEO ie. producing helpful content and social media sharing.
Google is very smart, and getting smarter each year, and can usually figure out eventually when you have been using clever trickery to make Google artificially boost rankings, rather than just making great content and Google naturally ranking it.
Paying people to post comments on your site to boost ranking is a little risky in our opinion, and along with paid backlinking, crosses over into “Black Hat” SEO that Google is penalizing ever more these days.
8. Anything That Links to b2stats.com
This is a common thing which appears in comments sections especially, but also in contact forms. Anything that links off to b2stats.com is a spam message and should be deleted or ignored.
The messages in comments threads may be very complimentary, designed to get you to click through, but ignore them anyway. b2stats.com is not a legitimate site: Here is a comment I got on one of my articles:
“Have you ever thougһt about publishing an ebook or gueѕt authoring on other sites? I have a blog based ᥙpon on the same ideаs yoս discuss аnd would love to hаve you sһаre some stories/information. I know my audience would enjoy yоur work. Іf you are even remotely interested, feel freе to send me an email.”
This message sounds genuine and complimentary, but the author’s name linked off to b2stats.com and when I looked into it further, this is a common source of spam and scam comments and contact forms, with many site owners complaining about spammy links off to this site.
9. Eric “It’s All About Perfect Timing Message” Talkwithcustomer
Another one that came through multiple different contacts forms on different blogs:
“Subject: It’s all about Perfect Timing
People ask, “why does TalkWithCustomer work so well?”
It’s simple.
TalkWithCustomer enables you to connect with a prospective customer at EXACTLY the Perfect Time.
– NOT one week, two weeks, three weeks after they’ve checked out your website.
– NOT with a form letter style email that looks like it was written by a bot.
– NOT with a robocall that could come at any time out of the blue.
TalkWithCustomer connects you to that person within seconds of THEM asking to hear from YOU.
They kick off the conversation.
They take that first step.
They ask to hear from you regarding what you have to offer and how it can make their life better.
And it happens almost immediately. In real time.
When you connect with them at that very moment it’s the ultimate in Perfect Timing – as one famous marketer put it, “you’re entering the conversation already going on in their mind.”
You can’t find a better opportunity than that.
And you can’t find an easier way to seize that chance than TalkWithCustomer.
CLICK HERE http://www.talkwithcustomer.
Sincerely,
Eric”
Comments – Again just a carbon copy spam message, exact same one came through to all my sites. They’ve no interest in my site in particular and are just sending it out generically through any contact form they can find. “Prospective customers” doesn’t apply to a blog.
10. Duplicate Content Miftolo’s Tools Spam Messages
Another generic message that sometimes comes through in contact forms, but more often in the comments. Always goes like this:
“Hi. I have checked your yoursitename.com and i see you’ve got some duplicate content so probably
it is the reason that you don’t rank hi in google. But you can fix this issue fast.
There is a tool that rewrites articles like human, just search
in google: miftolo’s tools”
Comments – Again they just post the same carbon copy message on all blogs, whether you’ve got duplicate content or not. Just a generic send-to-all message fishing for leads. Recommend deleting.
11. “Get Paid For What You Already Know” Self Education Spam Messages
Again had the exact same contact form message come through on a few of my blogs, with the same body text, just under two different names (Odette & Al).
Body text reads like this:
“The self education industry is a $355 Million per day industry and is expected to TRIPLE in the next 5 years! And with the right strategy this could be your opportunity to:
Get in early before it is oversaturated.
Help others go faster while you get paid
Fix a broken system
Make an impact on the world
Get paid for a skill, hobby, passion or expertise you already have (or get paid from someone else’s)
And Tony Robbins, Russell Brunson and Dean Graziosi are finally going to show YOU how to take advantage of it…”
etc blah blah blah. Loads more spiel and then leads of to the kbbmint.com site.
Comments – Again nonsense carbon copy spam, probably automated as the exact same message came through to several different sites through the contact form within a few days of each other. Recommend ignoring.
12. Domain Services Expiration Notice Scam
This comes through under different names and email addresses, but they’ll always list your domain and claim they haven’t received payment yet. They’ll give a fake domain expiry date and a message like “We have actually not gotten a settlement from you”.
Comments – More phishing spam, the same form comes through to all my sites at once, indicating it’s a bot spammer, and in any event the message is written in obviously broken English. Log in to your domain provider like GoDaddy to check domain expiry dates. Don’t follow any links in these messages, delete immediately and add names and emails to block list if possible. You’d have to be really gullible to fall for this one but people clearly do, otherwise they wouldn’t keep sending them out.
13. 2021 Eric Jones Update
Just a quick update from spring 2021 to confirm that any contact forms from Eric Jones needs deleting immediately. His message are always generic, automated send-to-many nonsense, with the major giveaway being that his contact forms always come through to all my sites at the same time, meaning whatever auto-bot he’s using is just crawling the corner of the web where my sites are hosted. If Eric Jones even exists, he’s never seen your site for real and he doesn’t care about it; he’s just phishing for gullible “leads”. Delete his nonsense immediately; he’s a pest.
14. 2022 Spam Contact Form – “You Have The Most Incredible Website”
Another automated send-to-many contact form that seems to be flying around a lot in early 2022. It’s usually a simple headline “You have the most incredible website” then a simple message body “You have a nice website. Let’s connect”, and then a link to a YouTube video. The name of the person and the email address often match, which makes it look a bit more authentic, but once you’ve seen the same generic message come through to several unrelated blogs, you know this isn’t the case.
Comments – Again just a generic bot sending these, because they come through to all my blogs around the same time. There’s no real person that’s seen your website for real, and they’ve no interest in connecting. I think they’re just phishing for backlinks for whatever YouTube video they’re linking to. Don’t follow the link to the video and delete these messages immediately.
Spotting Genuine Contact Form Messages
With a little bit of intuition and common sense, it is usually pretty easy to spot when a contact form message has been sent by a real individual person rather than a spam robot, and is aimed specifically at your site.
Here are some things to look out for:
- Long, detailed, messages from a real person who names themselves
- Discard inarticulate messages.
- They will go into great detail on how they found your site, why they like your content and what proposal they have for you.
- They will link back to credible sites and you will be able to check their credentials on LinkedIn etc.
- In general, it will be clear that it is a personalized message written specifically for you and not a carbon copy that has been sent to thousands of sites.
- Look out for generic SEO and digital marketing terms which don’t even properly fit or apply to your site. Is a sign of a send to all message.
- See our article on spotting genuine contact forms for more details.
