Be Excellent To Each Other

Yo yo.

I have a web form on my site that allows customers to contact me, and rather splendid it is as well. However recently I've started to get nonsense replies. Here's the latest:

Form Variables
your_name: pqipwye
company_name: pqipwye
phone: iTvNHepwU
email Address: pliixm@aybhtm.com
through: None selected
B1: Submit
comments: tLTndk <a href="http://ahxgdjxepjoq.com/">ahxgdjxepjoq</a>, ysopuzlxehqb, [link=http://uedzxlyoefkf.com/]uedzxlyoefkf[/link], http://ltjfbbbirxmw.com/


Obviously customer emails are important. Is this just some spam bot posting nonsense or are suddenly people using a new browser or something that is causing corrupted information to be sent? And why is it all jumbled?

In the words of the Oliver Twins "Help me Robin!".

Cheers.

Looks like shit spam to me.

Spam shit, I get it all the time.

Yeah, unless you start getting deluged to the point where it becomes bothersome I'd just ignore it.

yep, spam. You could try putting a CAPTCHA on the form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha

Is it a form you wrote yourself? There is lots of sample code available for PHP, ASP etc.

Rather than a captcha, I'd just stick a check on the form so that if anyone puts in <a href=...> or [link] or [url] that it rejects it.

No. Because potential clients sometimes send me URL's where they'd like a video to be put, or have details about their products.

But at least it's spam. I can live with spam, it was losing customers I was worried about.

Cheers all.

Yes, but I'd be surprised if they go to the trouble of putting in correct HTML or forum code as opposed to just writing "http://www.url.co.uk". HTML/forum code on e-mail contact forms is a typical sign of spam.

Hello Sir

Important email. <href="www.pimpthatsnack.com/shop.php">buy my t-shirts please</a>

Sincerely,

Boss

And malformed HTML is an even bigger sign of spam

FTFY.

Put a mandatory tick box on the form that says "I authorise you to contact me on the supplied e-mail address" or something. Any human will tick it. Robots will be flummoxed.

You should do it the other way around. Robots will tick any boxes going assuming that they're "accept terms and conditions" type boxes, but they'll never not tick a box.