Followers with no information in Profiles and similar banners

[LMGildersleeve]

I have notice a rash of followers who have similar banners with geometric designs and absolutely no other information. One follower even has no name but is also followed me with a name on their account and the same banner as the no name. All of them are following only me. So far I've found at least 10 of these followers. Out of the 10, 2 have the same banner.

Does Zazzle has generic geometric banners for customers to use?

I believe I have stumbled upon the scammers we are under attack from.

[Windy]

 I do not have a lot of those, but in checking, I see that I do have one follower by the name of NONE who is following 1907 stores and has no shop or collection that I can see.

[ameliacarrie]

Ive noticed these types of accounts and when I look at their products I ofen see a wide variety of popular designs from other people. Example. I had a tee design that was popular. I went to look at it one day and saw 9 other sellers using my artwork. All the stores had no about info. Their store label was generic.

[LMGildersleeve]

@ameliacarrieyou should report those people to Zazzle. There are a rash of thieves on Zazzle right now fitting that description.

[StarvingArtist]

Your observation was curious, so I checked followers on my main store. (I never really look at 'followers' to be honest, because I don't really think it means much.) Interestingly, out of 52 followers - OVER 30 are as just as you described. Geometric patterned banners (many have the same one), no photo as their profile, no store, only following me or perhaps one other store - some using only a first name. 

ONE had no name at all but when you click on it, you are redirected to the Zazzle main page, not to their profile. ONE has a name, but also clicking on the name redirects to the Z home page, not a profile. There were a few that had very little activity on their account but I noticed they had left reviews of products (not mine specifically, but Z products) and so I think those few are real people - I didn't count those in my 'over 30' possible fake accounts.

Maybe they aren't fake or here for nefarious reasons, but it just seems suspicious. If there is a plausible explanation I'd love to hear it.

[orientcourt]

Hi LMGidersleeve , took a look at my followers last week, different names with no profile, at least five of them with the same scribbly bright banner! Obviously thieves, if we can remove them I don't think it will make a difference ! They can still rip us off via a screen shot unfortunately!!

[Barbara]

Sheesh, I have a small collection of empty followers too. When I clicked on one of them, I was sent to Z's home page. And yes, I saw some of the "scribble" banner design. No store.

[KeegansCreation]

I just looked and I have some of them too. I think the  geometric banner (several variations) is a new Zazzle default because one such person with that banner had a store. Best case scenario for the ones following multiple people is associates. One person with a geometric banner and no store was following a couple thousand people and also had a Pro banner, which says very successful associate to me. But a number of them (a weirdly high number of them) were following only me. I am not that awesome. There were also a number of landing page redirects.

edited to add: maybe the landing page redirects are ones that Zazzle has already removed. It's a theory.

[Wildart]

who says you are not that awesome!! 🙂 🙂

[KeegansCreation]

I had a bunch of them following only me too. That is a huge red flag.

[shellifitz]

I can't even see who my followers are because when I click on it the circle just spins forever and never loads.  😞

[Scott]

Hi Everyone,

Let's avoid posting links to member profiles. If there's a member that you suspect of wrongdoing please contact us directly, either via email or Zazzle Chat.

[shellifitz]

These are bots.  Zazzle is getting overrun with bots.

[PAZP]

Sounds like it starting to look like social media. 🙄

[LMGildersleeve]

I didn't add any links. I'd love to know if those following us (and only us alone) if they are customers. I had been assuming this all along but I think it threw me they had banners similar to one another. I see there are those who have the same banner so I thought the banners were generated by Zazzle.

Love to hear the official on this regarding banners and followers.

[KeegansCreation]

I don't think they're customers. I looked through my sales reports and my followers who follow only me have never bought from me. Shelli is probably right that they are bots. Weirdly, some of them have a profile photo, though nothing else.

[DesignerOne]

I don’t pay much attention to followers either. Most are likely other designers trying to scope out the competition.

However, just because a follower’s member profile section is all blank or mostly blank, does not necessarily mean there is anything suspicious. They could just be a customer or affiliate.

· A customer or affiliate is more likely to use just their first names or nicknames. Remember that a member profile is public, a designer might want to use their real name to be more presentable, but it doesn’t benefit much for a customer or affiliate to do so.

· If a member doesn’t upload a profile image, then Zazzle will just show a lined figure placeholder image.

· If a member doesn’t upload a profile banner, Zazzle will just show one of their various geometric pattern placeholder banner. There’s very little reason for members who are just customers or affiliates to pretty up their profile with a photo or banner.

· A customer or affiliate would also have little reason to write anything about themselves in the About section so that would be blank.

· A customer probably does not even know about creating collections. Collections have always been something more useful for a designer rather than a customer so their collections section would likely also be blank.

· Some customers come here just to shop and are not keen to use Zazzle like a social site thus would not be interested in following people or liking products and so would have both the Following and Likes section blank.

· If a member is not a store owner, the Store section would also be blank. There is also a choice for those that are stores owners, under Advance Settings, to not show their store in their public member profile.

· If a customer has not written any reviews then their Activity section would also be blank.

I have customers that have reviewed my products. So out of curiosity I clicked on their name (many just first names) leading to their member profile page. I have quite a lot of reviews, so I checked only about 20 to 30 of them and 100% of the ones I looked at have no banners for their member profile and thus show one of Zazzle’s various geometric placeholder banners and 100% have empty About section. Some have profile photos, most don’t. For some, their member profile sections are all blank except the Activity section showing their reviews. Some of my customers do follow a handful of stores and for some my store is not among the ones they follow. A few only follow my store and the rest of member profile section (excluding the Activity section where the reviews are) are empty . Then there are others that follow a lot of stores and there are ones that like a lot of products. So since the percentage of customers leaving reviews to sales is generally very low I think it is just as likely that there would be plenty of my customers that could have followed me and didn’t choose to review any of their purchases nor add anything to rest of their member profile sections so their member profile would on a whole appear very blank.

A poster above mentioned about checking followers names against names in Sale History to check if they are really customers. This is not the most accurate way to check. In the old forums, it was said (by one of the moderators?) that names on Sales History are not necessarily the customers name but the one it is being delivered to.

However, the followers that some of you mentioned with no names at all do seem like bots especially since Zazzle redirected their profile page link to Zazzle’s homepage seeming to imply they have been found out and cancelled by Zazzle.

[shellifitz]

Sorry but I had to mention how ironic it was when I clicked on your profile link and it took me to a generic banner just like what the OP is talking about except that you have a name... the same as this month.  😉

[DesignerOne]

Like Scott mentioning how he opened a new account in his post after mine, I too had opened a new account out of curiosity. As this is just a test account it is completely empty (just like how a customer’s account might be) I might as well use it for forum posting, especially since this new forum gives members less privacy. If I had not had this account, I would never have posted on this forum thread at all. This new forum is fully visible to the public without need of a member account and there are no restricted boards for those who have reached a certain designer level. My guess is this forum has lost quite a number of elite designer participation because they prefer not to post on such a public forum. In the old forum some of them used to mostly post on the restricted boards.

[shellifitz]

I totally understand your reasoning and I wasn't asking for an explanation 🙂  But thanks for it anyway! 

[Scott · Accepted solution]

LMGildersleeve,  I'm using your post for context, but this post is for everyone's knowledge.

This sounds like every single new user on our website. I just opened a new Z account (linked below) and it meets all of your criteria.

https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238358396047768144

So, there may or may not actually be much of an issue at all. What you're seeing may be users who decided to create an account so that they could follow some interesting Creators, or so they can create some collections with interesting products. They may be in the research stage of a major purchase. These are people that may return at a later time to purchase a product from you. Probably wise to let that play out rather than suggesting they're evil-doers simply because they have not entered a name, or changed their banner image, etc. We do like to see that Creators have filled out their member and store information as it helps to humanize an otherwise computer-driven process, but we don't always ask the same of customers.

This is all the more reason to avoid posting Member IDs or profile pages publicly on this site (I removed the offending post earlier this morning). The site is certainly not being overrun by spammers or bots, as some would like you to believe. Again, if you come across a Zazzle user that is not following the rules please contact us privately about it, or use the Report feature.

[CreativeLeahG]

Thank you for this solution Scott.

I've always been pleased to see those 'blank' profiles myself, because I always took it to mean 'customer' which I much prefer to 'fellow creator' regarding follows.

[LMGildersleeve]

I'm very happy to accept your thoughts on this matter Scott. 😀 I had a gut feeling they were customers but shocked to see some profiles without names. Glad to know we have pretty geographic banners for our customers. Have a great day. 🖖🏼

[shellifitz]

No one accused anyone else of being an evil doer... ( don't put words into our mouths)   a bot is not an evil doer either they are automated programs...  These profiles may or may not be bots but there are/were some "designers" in the marketplace that have all the hallmarks of being automated (aka bots) such as egregious tag spamming.   That was why I referenced bots. It is not that far fetched to suspect maybe some of these anonymous profiles might be automated as well.   I hope most of them really are customers as you say. 

[ievaj]

I know for sure that 3 of my followers who have these similar geometric pattern banners ( with no photo and no profile info)  and who follow only me are my costumers. They bought from me previously and one of them is return costumer.

[Bliss]

I have a lot of similar followers. But, most of them are my customers.

[RemiC]

Is there a way to remove a follower with what appears to be a suspicious account/empty profile? 

[igiftcenter]

apologies do not have the time to read through all these replies today.  I just wanted to point out i have followers who have transformed their profiles into online resumes and self promotion pages. I have seen several just posting things like...(paraphrasing)

work in the field of office machines and I have been servicing office machines for over 5 years and am open to job offers in my field.

Not suggesting if this is a good thing or bad. Just making mention of it in the event it not an acceptable practice for a profile here

[LMGildersleeve]

Right, I pointed one of these profiles to Zazzle in an e-mail. So at least one employee is aware of it.