Contact Us Form Problems

[Devil Woman]

Hi there I have the contact us form open on my board for members to be able to contact me if needs be about any problems like registration problems etc only I have found this to be abused by spammers here is an email of the sort that I have been receiving for nearly a week now

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now this is getting very annoying as you can imagine as the email address I use on the forum is the email I wish to use for members to contact me about problems on logging in or for guests to contact me about problems with registering.

Is there anyway I can stop these spammers abusing the contact us form on the board without turning the contact us part off as I don't really want to do that as it is not fair for the genuine members and guests, I am keeping the IP addresses that come in with the email and checking for any duplicate ones so that if there is I can ban the IP address but even then I don't think that will stop them gaining access to the contact us form or will it?

Any help is appreciated as this is getting very annoying now, I also haven't clicked on any of the links incase these emails have been sent hoping I will click on a link and it will open up a backdoor for them on the forum as I have heard this can happen.

If you can help that would be great

Thanks in advance

[Smiry Kin's]

Don't get 100% what you mean. is someone emailing you via the contact us form?.. spamming you?

[peterska2]

In vBOptions > Site Name / URL / Contact Details > Allow Unregistered Users to use 'Contact Us'

Change this setting to Yes, but Verify Image

This will stop a lot of automatic spam without affecting your normal users as it will require the input of a verification image (like at registration) for any guests who try to use the contact us form.

[Smiry Kin's]

hmm you tried this??
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9083/contactus17jo.jpg

In vBOptions > Site Name / URL / Contact Details > Allow Unregistered Users to use 'Contact Us'

Change this setting to Yes, but Verify Image

This will stop a lot of automatic spam without affecting your normal users as it will require the input of a verification image (like at registration) for any guests who try to use the contact us form.
bah beat me too it, but i provided an image!! lol

[Devil Woman]

Thanks for that :) should that hopefully eliminate alot of spam emails being sent using the contact us form on the board?

Still getting used to VB after a year lol oh well they say u learn something new every day :)

[peterska2]

It should do as a lot are done by spam bots who will submit forms anywhere that they can. However as they wont be able to verify the image, the only spam that you will get is that done manually by people.

[Devil Woman]

Oh right so that should determine whether it is a bot sending the emails or an actual person sending them, thanks, if there is an actual person sending the spam emails is there anyway that I can prevent this at all? or is that not a possibility?

[peterska2]

without disabling the contact form for guests completely, then this wont be possible (or not that I know of anyway)

[Devil Woman]

Which is what I wanted to avoid as if people have lost passwords or whatever they will need to contact me as a guest, ok thanks for the help will see how setting it to verify by and image goes and see if any problems eliminate if not guess I will have to keep blocking the email addresses, thanks again for the help it's much appreciated :)

[Smiry Kin's]

Which is what I wanted to avoid as if people have lost passwords or whatever they will need to contact me as a guest, ok thanks for the help will see how setting it to verify by and image goes and see if any problems eliminate if not guess I will have to keep blocking the email addresses, thanks again for the help it's much appreciated :)
Well that can be done, you could just simply make a dedicated section to the forum for guests, where they can post there problems etc..

guests can only view/post etc.

[JaneWindall]

this should be default to add verify image for user LOGIN as well. i have been writing my own mod for this.

[PoetJA-1975]

Thanx you guys very much for that info - I was having a similar SPAM issue - but hopefully the prob will dwindle down to nothing :)

Anyway - much appreciation for the information!

Jacquii.

[rrr]

In vBOptions > Site Name / URL / Contact Details > Allow Unregistered Users to use 'Contact Us'

Change this setting to Yes, but Verify Image

This will stop a lot of automatic spam without affecting your normal users as it will require the input of a verification image (like at registration) for any guests who try to use the contact us form.

You just saved me about 50 spams a day. Thank you!

I couldn't find this option when I was searching around in the admincp.