Sudden increase in sign-ups

[Bunchadogs]

I've noticed a sudden increase in sign-ups - all of which are fraudulent.

I was checking through them this morning, and the vast majority of the IP addresses are from China.

Is it possible to block ALL access to blocks of IP addresses from China?
I'm talking about everything - sign-ups, control panel, ftp, even visitors!

I'm honestly not concerned about losing any potential customers from China - realistically I'm a small business and all of my clients are small businesses. We don't operate on an 'international' scale, and mostly don't even have products or services that would translate to that market.

Just to be clear - this is not about hate or prejudice! I love Chinese food, so I surely love the Chinese people who invented it! I know it's an incredibly small percentage of people that are responsible, but honestly I don't think the other billion++ people will miss my sites if they were to become unavailable!

 

[Stephen]

I am actually going to china next month, want me to ask them to quit this?

This is not rare, they use google insite searches find signup links and start signing up hopping to be accepted, or in some cases, they are really testing moderation of your plans being on this happens in cycles. They just go based on what google feeds them.

There are quite a few that end up getting fraudulent accounts automatically created because they forget to turn moderate everything back on, and a free accout activates auto

ALWAYS turn your free plan signups off once you finish with them, this includes the service plan because google CAN find it! And this is not really to you, just notes for everyone.

I believe you can set in the blocking options to block IPs you see, but in reality so many IP ranges we can't just 'block china'

 

[Bunchadogs]

"Block China" just sounds so easy...

Thanks, and the thank goodness for 'moderate everything'!

I might look at blocking a couple of blocks since I had so many from 113.3.52.x and 110.72.49.x - and maybe add these same ranges to htaccess blocks just so I feel a little safer.
There's nothing like a client calling up to say their site has been deface by the People's Army of Manchuria - or some other nonsense.