Add CAPTCHA to sign-up form to stop bots from flooding my account with fake sign-ups

[KittredgeC]

I am getting flooded with fake sign-ups through the Constant Contact sign-up form. Can't you do something to stop the bots from bombarding your sign-up forms?! I would like to hear that Constant Contact is trying to make its sign-up form more secure. Can't you add CAPTCHA or something to "prove you are human"???

I have confirmed opt-in, so these fakes do not actually get on my contact list. But my email box is jammed with automatic replies to my confirmation email. Today I received 75 of them! And they're all in German! (My email is in English) One day recently I got 85 new contacts awaiting confirmation. Normally I get one sign-up per day. These names all look fake, fake, fake!!! This is making it hard to find my real contacts and manage my personal email box.

[KittredgeC]

I am getting flooded with fake sign-ups through the Constant Contact sign-up form. Can't you do something to stop the bots from bombarding your sign-up forms?! I would like to hear that Constant Contact is trying to make its sign-up form more secure. Can't you add CAPTCHA or something to "prove you are human"???

I have confirmed opt-in, so these fakes do not actually get on my contact list. But my email box is jammed with automatic replies to my confirmation email. Today I received 75 of them! And they're all in German! (My email is in English) One day recently I got 85 new contacts awaiting confirmation. Normally I get one sign-up per day. These names all look fake, fake, fake!!! This is making it hard to find my real contacts and manage my personal email box.

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @KittredgeC ,

All sign up forms made in our system have built-in reCAPTCHA. It's possible this is a more coordinated attack from someone manually signing up the contacts. To be honest, if you're being targeted by something like this, you have two options:

• Remove the sign up form that's being targeted from wherever you have it posted (an inline on your site, a Wordpress form if applicable, a landing page linked on your social pages, etc.)
• Set your account up for Confirm Opt-In (requires turning on advanced permissions for your account), so any sign-ups have to explicitly click the link in the email they receive and navigate to the confirmation page, before they'll be active, billable, send-able contacts. 

Since you've already setup your account for reCAPTCHA, there's nothing further to do beyond removing the sign-up capabilities from your site entirely, if you don't want the fake contacts coming in but remaining in Awaiting Confirmation status.