PBJ Form Builder 1.5.0: Mark It Spam, Ban the IP, Even Block the Country
PBJ Form Builder already stops most bots before they ever reach your inbox — a server-signed math CAPTCHA, a honeypot, a time-trap, and a per-IP rate limit, all self-contained with zero Google. Version 1.5.0 adds the fifth layer, for the spam that’s sent by actual humans (or the bots clever enough to do arithmetic): a Spam button on every submission.
Click it once and three things happen. The sender’s IP address goes onto a permanent ban list. Every submission that address ever made — not just the one you clicked — is deleted. And from that moment on, anything it submits is silently dropped: the spammer still sees the form’s normal success message, but nothing is stored, no notification email is sent, and no card is ever charged. There’s no error to route around, so there’s nothing to adapt to. They keep shouting into a void.
The ban list lives under Settings → Anti-bot → Blocked IPs (spam), one address per line. Made a mistake? Delete the line and the address is unblocked.
Spam rarely travels alone
One blocked IP is usually the tip of a subnet. That’s why 1.5.0 pairs with PBJ Geo Viewer: if it’s installed, marking spam immediately offers two follow-ups — block the sender’s whole country (the country becomes view-only site-wide: every page still renders for readers, search engines, and AI crawlers, but forms, purchases, comments, and registrations are disabled) or add just that IP to Geo Viewer’s site-wide blacklist. One click either way, straight from the Submissions screen.
PBJ Form Builder 1.5.0 is rolling out now through the normal WordPress updates screen for licensed sites. The full version history is in the changelog, and new copies are $15 one-time on the PBJ Form Builder page.
PBJ Form Builder already stops most bots before they ever reach your inbox — a server-signed math CAPTCHA, a honeypot, a time-trap, and a per-IP rate limit, all self-contained with zero Google. Version 1.5.0 adds the fifth layer, for the spam that’s sent by actual humans (or the bots clever enough to do arithmetic): a Spam button on every submission.
Click it once and three things happen. The sender’s IP address goes onto a permanent ban list. Every submission that address ever made — not just the one you clicked — is deleted. And from that moment on, anything it submits is silently dropped: the spammer still sees the form’s normal success message, but nothing is stored, no notification email is sent, and no card is ever charged. There’s no error to route around, so there’s nothing to adapt to. They keep shouting into a void.
The ban list lives under Settings → Anti-bot → Blocked IPs (spam), one address per line. Made a mistake? Delete the line and the address is unblocked.
Spam rarely travels alone
One blocked IP is usually the tip of a subnet. That’s why 1.5.0 pairs with PBJ Geo Viewer: if it’s installed, marking spam immediately offers two follow-ups — block the sender’s whole country (the country becomes view-only site-wide: every page still renders for readers, search engines, and AI crawlers, but forms, purchases, comments, and registrations are disabled) or add just that IP to Geo Viewer’s site-wide blacklist. One click either way, straight from the Submissions screen.
PBJ Form Builder 1.5.0 is rolling out now through the normal WordPress updates screen for licensed sites. The full version history is in the changelog, and new copies are $15 one-time on the PBJ Form Builder page.