Blocking Spam Inquiries

[melchapman]

Hello all...

My client is getting about 10-15 spam e-mails a day from his website. Is there anyway to block spammers.

What happens is that they fill out one of the contact forms so that it actually looks like an inquiry for service.

Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks so much,
Mel

[zephyrireland]

If you are using PHP to submit the contents of a form, they could be using injection tactics to send spam to many users.

Before sending the email you should validate the contents of your form variables, ensure there is no way they can inject bcc: headers or similar, into the headers of your email form submission.

You could also implement an anti-spam technique (captcha) to ensure that its not submitted by spam robots directly talking to your php form submission script. i.e. bypassing the form completely.

[dann]

10 - 15 spams a day is minuscule compared to what I get.
Are these actual users filling out the forms or some automated bot type of thing where your client is receiving gibberish.
IMO - deal with the spam. I manage several websites and the spam I receive is almost unreal.
But do I want to take away the ease of customers or potential customers contacting me? Do I want to take away that bit of reassurance that I can be contacted any time.
Once you start blocking IP's or using other methods you run the risk of becoming unreachable.
This may also be a competitor using fake IPs trying to get you to block SE spiders or a wide block of users.
Spam is a minor annoyance as far as I am concerned.
Losing customers is more of a concern to me.
Once you register a domain you ARE going to get this crap no matter what steps you take to avoid this if your email contains your domain. Spammers will use a constant barrage of common extensions. help@url.com admin@url.com and once they find one that does not bounce LOOKOUT here comes the flood.
So my point is what is more important spam or customers to your client.
Dan