Akismet is a learning engine, so as long as you keep marking them as spam, it will adapt to the new spam trend.

In a normal 24 hour period, my blog gets 20 or so spam comments which avoids the Akismet scanner. They land in my inbox and I have to tend to them on daily basis which is a chore. As you can expect, this takes up quiet a lot of time on daily basis. I believe marking-them-spam does not really work (or else I should see a decrease over time, no?). My blog has been suffering with this issue for more than a month now (it wasn't always like this). The number of legitimate spam comments (which Akismet grabs properly) are in hundreds, but they don't bother me because I don't get emails.

So what are my options? I opted out of receiving email notifications on spam-followers issue which is discussed in this thread (so I don't have to waste my time on it). But I am now stuck with tending spam-commenters emails on daily basis.

OK, thank you. I will try to see if I can locate a new email address for the owner, and barring that will export to a new site.

Owen

When you say unpublished articles are you including articles started by that account but published by another?

No, I mean draft articles that were created by the owner of the site and never published.

The e-mail address registered with the WordPress.com account is the account's unique identifier. You will notice that when you signed up, we did not require any other information other than an email address. As such, this is how we are able to verify ownership of blogs and accounts; there is no other way to verify ownership other than the steps I outlined above. No exceptions.

Your only steps are to either get in contact with this person and have them initiate an ownership transfer of this site or to set up a new site and move your content and custom domain over to that site as @auxclass recommended.

I hope that clarifies things.

But if the problem was just new bloggers not knowing what they were doing, then why has the number of new/suspicious followers increased so dramatically over the past few months?

Because the number of new WordPress.com users has increased dramatically over the past few month too, and new folks probably want to read blogs too.

Anyway, this all just highlights why this won't be a quick fix, as we are collecting and analyzing the data to find the best way to identify and combat spam followers without inconveniencing legitimate followers.

Thank you for that clarification. The transaction ID was tied to my account and not to the owners.

When you say unpublished articles are you including articles started by that account but published by another?

If not the only other thing I can ask is whether there is an organizational way to get this changed? The site I run is the news service for a specific organization, with a specific membership. The 'owner' of the site has not been a member for years.

Thanks again,
Owen

I understand that not all bloggers, particularly new ones, have the same level of expertise or themed content. But if the problem was just new bloggers not knowing what they were doing, then why has the number of new/suspicious followers increased so dramatically over the past few months? There is clearly something else going on.

blog has only one or two posts

The Reader requires a WordPress.com account, but we don't force people to use their blogs just to use the Reader.

posts are just a photo plus a one or two word caption, and photos don't have anything to do with each other

Perhaps they're just getting started with their blog. Not everyone launches into a novel on a day 1.

posts are reblogs from different sites, and reblogged posts don't have anything to do with each other

Reblogging is a very popular feature, it's also encouraged during some signup flows.

majority of blog elements have not been changed from original template (e.g. subhead still says something like "just another WordPress.com site")

We have plenty of legitimate popular blogs who have not changed their tagline.

What I'm trying to say with this is that a splog (a blog filled with ads or designed to drive traffic off-site) is spam, but a nearly empty or unaltered blog is not. That's just profiling, which never goes over well, just like how you wouldn't arrest a kid for simply walking out of a store.

Either way, neither of the above would necessarily prove that the Follower is not legitimate, it simply proves that they're not a skilled a blogger, which again is not a requirement and doesn't happen instantly.

Please only report blogs that are violating our terms of service. Reporting blogs for low activity simply delays our ability to act on legitimate threats, some of which require the involvement of law enforcement and child protective services (which would be really nice if we could get to quickly without digging through a sea of blogs reported just for having slim content).

The one thing they do get is lots and lots of email messages from wordpress.com, each of which comes with a valid DKIM signature. Maybe they're building a database of these to try to exploit hash collisions, or something.

Right, that could happen to any bulk-mailing service, but that type of exploit wouldn't be possible without direct access to our DNS system, which is never going to happen.

Let me know if you have any questions!

We're still trying to figure out a motive for these fake email subscribers so we can actually target the motive itself and put a stop to it. So far, we're running a bit short.

They have nothing to gain from reading your blog and nothing to gain from affecting totals. Unlike WordPress.com (non-email) followers, where you receive a notification email with links to their blog and Gravatar profile, there's really nothing for them to gain.

The one thing they do get is lots and lots of email messages from wordpress.com, each of which comes with a valid DKIM signature. Maybe they're building a database of these to try to exploit hash collisions, or something.

What is your criteria for identifying "followers that, judging by the content (or lack thereof) on their own websites, have no reason to follow [your] blog."

I just finished reporting seven of them, all of which showed up in the past 12 hours, so I can give you some very recent examples.
- blog has only one or two posts
- posts are just a photo plus a one or two word caption, and photos don't have anything to do with each other, or
- posts are reblogs from different sites, and reblogged posts don't have anything to do with each other
- majority of blog elements have not been changed from original template (e.g. subhead still says something like "just another WordPress.com site")

For what it's worth, the text in all the blogs I just finished reporting was in Indonesian. I realize that a blog not written in English is not a sign of spamming, but a good proportion of the "instant followers" I have seen in the past few weeks have been Indonesian-language blogs.

Just checking back in. Is there an email I should be sending the transaction ID to? Or did you want me to just post it directly here?

Owen

I don't know how to contact the original owner, but I can send you the paypal transaction ID for a WordPress upgrade. Where should I send this information?

Thank you,
Owen

The only way we can transfer ownership is from a request from the site owner in either a reply here from the site owner logged in under their username or via email from the email address on file for the site owner.

If they have lost access to their email account, they can try logging in with their username and testing different passwords using the reset password form. Often people can remember the password after a few tries. https://en.wordpress.com/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword

If that won't work, and do not have access to the account email address, we will accept one of the following alternative account verification options:

* The API key associated with the account. Please see this link for more information on API keys: http://en.support.wordpress.com/api-keys/

* A Paypal Transaction ID for any upgrades purchased for the account. Keep in mind that since PayPal is our sole payment processor behind-the-scenes, this transaction ID was generated even if you paid via credit card or another method: http://en.support.wordpress.com/paypal-transaction-id/

* The titles of any unpublished draft posts or pages the user would have created.

If none of this information is available, then there's nothing we can do to transfer ownership of the site. You would have to follow the steps @auxclass provided above to move your domain and content to a new WordPress.com site.

I hope that clarifies things!

Thank you for all your help! But beyond the minor issues of it being lousy to have to move everything, having to move to a less desirable wordpress name, and having the original wordpress.com URL 404'ing, there is the more serious concern that I would lose the nearly 400 followers I have on the site and have to start over. I would also lose all the statistical data which would be kind of lousy also.

Then there is the decision as to the look and feel of the new site - make it look like a clone or do some changes and maybe a different theme - they have a theme that I don't know anything about so it might be the only news type theme like that -

I was proud of the workaround - not too bad for past my bed time -

Good luck on this one - nice site

Good option @auxclass.

Export the blog - should only need to be an Admin to do that

Register a new WordPress.COM blog (new-site.wprdpress.com) - maybe close to the original - import the old blog into the new site - then transfer the custom domain name & mapping to the new site

There are some copyright issues with this - since the original writers own the copyrights to their work - you would probably need their permission to move the content to a new site - else their content would need to be left on the old site -

This is sort of a rough way to do things and tends to upset the readers and produce much speculation as to why the sudden move from on site to another and such

Have you tried a search for their name and/or username in Google to see if by chance they have another site here or elsewhere?

What is your criteria for identifying "followers that, judging by the content (or lack thereof) on their own websites, have no reason to follow [your] blog."

Thank you for your help!

Which brings back the point that if you're concerned over who is reading your blog, a public blog is probably not for you.

I am not concerned about who is reading my blog. I am concerned about the amount of time that I have had to spend every day for the past two months or so reporting commercial spam followers, and spam followers that, judging by the content (or lack thereof) on their own websites, have no reason to follow my blog.

As others have stated in this and other threads, WordPress allows us to approve comments before they appear on our blogs. It would be extremely helpful to be able to do the same with follows.