Forum Discussion

SteveWoodendCricket's avatar
SteveWoodendCricket
Copper Contributor
Sep 29, 2020

Personal Account using Forms: Incorrectly blocking by the automatic phishing detection

So I have a personal account for our cricket club.

 

We’ve created a COVID form that members can use to check in and out of our training/match venues, we require this to be compliant with the relevant legislation here in Victoria, Australia.

 

Forms has disabled the form we have created with the message “You are blocked from distributing forms due to multiple phishing forms created from your account. Contact your admin for more information.”

As this is a personal account there is no “admin”, so the help I did find online which refers to forms for business subscriptions (where your business admin can unlock the form) does not apply.

Any advice from the community on how to resolve this?

  • cateb2731's avatar
    cateb2731
    Copper Contributor
    I have the same issue, having created a QR code for our local cricket club!
    Getting this same message and again this is a personal account, so there is no admin.

    SteveWoodendCricket - were you able to find a solution?
    • SteveWoodendCricket's avatar
      SteveWoodendCricket
      Copper Contributor

      cateb2731 I managed to workaround the problem but didn’t get an actual solution.

       

      Once your personal Microsoft account is effectively locked out of forms by the security bots that seems to be irreversible. Certainly my attempts to engage their service agents through online chat just went in endless circles.

       

      Eventually, I just duplicated the Covid form using my personal Microsoft account instead and it’s worked ever since.

       

      When the form was first created in the “cricket club” account, I notice that my predecessor actually duplicated the form a few times and did not notice the copies, and it may be that having a few copies of the same form attracts the attention of the security bots.

      Alternatively, I recall that the original form released by Cricket Victoria was longer with more fields, and which they have since simplified. It could also be that the extra fields in the earlier versions looked uncomfortably like a data collection scam.

      My recommendations therefore:

      - Ensure you only have one duplicated copy of the CV form (which you then amend for your individual club requirements e.g. name of your specific venues).

      - Ensure you are using the latest form template they have provided which only has the minimum number of data fields required for check in/out purposes.

      - Get people to test/use the form quickly after creation, it might that form completions (without complaints from your users) help the bots to recognise these forms as being valid.

      - If you have burned your “cricket club” microsoft profile, you’ll need to use an alternative microsoft profile. It’s a good idea to make sure your club committee know this just to cover the data privacy aspect, you are responsible for the safety of the member information submitted on the forms and the safe destruction of this data after a suitable time (28 days if I recall correctly).

       

      Good luck!

      • cateb2731's avatar
        cateb2731
        Copper Contributor

        SteveWoodendCricket Thanks for the prompt response!

        I have only ever created 1x form under my personal Microsoft account and I had the absolute minimum questions on the form (ie. only asked for mobile number, name, date and reason) as asking for email address was causing warnings to appear before an individual could sign in. It worked fine for a month and then suddenly got this message

         

        I'm now trying Google Forms as I need to up and running asap.

         

        Cheers!

Resources