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How to fix issues with reCAPTCHA bot-prevention
How to fix issues with reCAPTCHA bot-prevention

Resolve problems for your customers to register while keeping bots away.

Chris Klemming avatar
Written by Chris Klemming
Updated over a week ago

At Waitwhile, we take security very seriously. One important security measure we have in place is detection and prevention of scripts and bots that could be used to flood your waitlists and booking calendars. We use Google's reCAPTCHA feature to keep malicious software from engaging in abusive activities on your Waitwhile flows, while not preventing your legitimate customers from using it.

However, there are instances where the reCAPTCHA challenges may be triggered unintentionally for some your customers. This article will help you to to troubleshoot and resolve these false positive if they occur.

How do we use reCAPTCHA?

At Waitwhile, we're using the latest reCAPTCHA v3. Each user that attempts to sign up to your public Waitwhile link will be assigned a score between 0.0-1.0.

By default, if the score is 0.5 or lower the user is suspected of being a bot, and in such cases Waitwhile will display an error message and they will not be allowed to complete the registration process.

This calculation usually works as intended, but there may be some instances where the score can be low even for legitimate users.

Why users may get a low reCAPTCHA score?

Here are some typical reasons:

  • Many users are trying to join your waitlist from the same WiFi or IP address (e.g. at an event or conference)

  • Many users are using the same browser or device to join your waitlist or schedule bookings (e.g. if you're using a shared Kiosk for registration)

  • Users are using a VPN or accessing your Waitwhile pages from countries that are associated with a high level of suspicious spam activity.

How to fix the reCAPTCHA issue?

Our Support team can help manually change your reCAPTCHA score threshold so that the bot prevention is less sensitive. If using our API, this can be changed by calling the Update Location endpoint with the attribute recaptchaMinScore set to have a value between -1 and 1, or you can set it to -1 to disable it completely.

If using "Kiosk Mode" we can also assist in whitelisting your IP range to disable these security measures.

To get help. get in touch with our Support team via chat or by emailing support@waitwhile.com.

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