If you were watching the Twitter stream for the hashtag belonging to ReedPop’s New York Comic Con yesterday — #NYCC — then you might have assumed that the show was so successful even cynical journalists and veterans had been bowled over by it. “So much pop culture to digest! Can’t. handle. the. awesome,” raved some tweets. “So much to see, so much to do!” said others. The only problem was the tweets weren’t actually written by the owners of the accounts on which they appeared.

RT So much pop culture to digest! Can’t. handle. the. awesome. #NYCC http://t.co/XShKBd3LVP This wasn’t me. It was NYCC tweeting for me :/ — Brian Crecente (@crecenteb) October 11, 2013

The ghostwritten tweets, which included the hashtag #NYCC and a link to the event’s Facebook page, were posted on the Twitter feeds of many attendees after the event began. So, who was behind these phantom social media raves? None other than NYCC organizer ReedPop, of course. Attendees to this year’s convention were allowed to pre-register their RFID-enabled badges online, and during that process, to connect their social media profiles to their badges — something, the NYCC registration site explained, that would make the “NYCC experience… 100x cooler! For realz.”

Admittedly, most attendees didn’t expect “100x cooler” to translate into “we’ll use your social media presence to post spam in your feed as soon as the RFID badge senses that you’ve entered the Javits Center to attend the show,” but that seems to be what happened.

Hey, @NY_Comic_Con. I did not Tweet this. What the hell? Your wifi? Your app? pic.twitter.com/GqMgsi712B — Greg Miller (@GameOverGreggy) October 11, 2013

After the scale of this social media hacking became apparent last night, ReedPop tweeted a request that attendees not “fret” over the invasion of privacy:

FYI – do not fret if #NYCC-ID tweeted as you yesterday! We shut this opt-in feature off so it won’t happen anymore. Have a blast at NYCC! — New York Comic Con (@NY_Comic_Con) October 11, 2013

Later, the organization released a slightly more in-depth statement apologizing for what had happened:

As you may have seen yesterday, there were some posts to Twitter and Facebook issued by New York Comic Con on behalf of attendees after RFID badges were registered. This was an opt-in function after signing in, but we were probably too enthusiastic in our messaging and eagerness to spread the good word about NYCC. We have since shut down this service completely and apologize for any perceived overstep. Please accept our apologies and have an absolutely excellent time this weekend.

Note that they apologize for any “perceived” overstep,” and admit only that they were “probably too enthusiastic in [their] messaging and eagerness,” with no real acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

This isn’t the first time that ReedPop has had trouble with oversharing at this year’s New York Comic Con. Last month, it came to light (via WIRED contributor Rachel Edidin) that ReedPop had shared the personal contact information provided by journalists during their press registration — including home phone numbers and addresses — with exhibitors at the show. (After consultation with some of the journalists whose information had been shared, the company removed home addresses and phone numbers from the list so they would not be shared moving forward.)

The convention continues throughout this weekend.