Spammers using my contact form

[caff]

I have a simple 'contact me' page coded in ASP, which I think is being used by spammers. The contact form asks for name, e-mail and query, and when you press 'submit', it e-mails it to me (and me only).

I'm only getting about 1 e-mail a day, so I don't think it's an automated bot, but I have no knowledge how this stuff works... all I know is that the 'your query' contain spam links to pr0n, and the e-mail addresses are normally something like '[email protected]' or something.

Is there any way I can prevent this? I've noticed some sign-ups use a number verification, but this seems a bit overkill for my needs.

 

[caff]

Thanks for the advice, I'll have a play around.

 

[caff]

My so-far-foolproof way of detecting spammers is to put an extra field in the form, call it something innocuous like 'website', and then hide it with CSS. That way, normal users shouldn't ever see it and it remains blank. Bots on the other hand will just see it as another form field and fill it out. Therefore, reject those entries where that field has been filled out.

You can stick some text next to it like "Don't fill this out" for those with CSS turned off. Works for me, and it's better than captchas.

Great idea, and works perfectly. Thanks!

I've even gone further, and used several hidden 'dummy fields' with multiple css style names, and strange form field names (as RobH suggested) to make it more difficult to detect which is the real one.

And hey presto - no spam for the past two days

OcUK brain power wins again.