Support » Plugin: Wordfence Security - Firewall & Malware Scan » Locked me out of my site

Locked me out of my site

  • theforwardmale

    (@theforwardmale)


    1 year, 11 months ago

    Had bought the full plugin and had it on my site for a year. Only reason I did was because I had had a major security scare and was panicked into buying a “serious” security plugin.

    Removed it permanently after it locked me out of my own site on my laptop during important updating that I was doing. Was blessed to have had the WordPress app open on my mobile, which allowed me to deactivate the plugin and get back into my site.

    And what happened after I deactivated the plugin after a year of having it? Zero. Life moved on. Security / threats changed zero. The plugin will sit on your site as a semblance of doing something without actually changing anything.

    What I noticed on the stats was that it was always ostensibly blocking some form of malware or intrusion. You know how that goes: “We blocked 48 fatal threats today.” That type of software. I began to see this more as a built-in feature to make you think it’s actually doing something for you, when in reality, it does nothing.

    Then maybe a few months after I removed it, my credit card got automatically charged 80 dollars for an update even though I didn’t even have the plugin on my computer anymore. Literally had removed it; wasn’t just deactivated. Thankfully customer service removed the charge. I give this plugin three stars because customer service was good and refunded me. Otherwise if we go based on functionality, it didn’t do anything noticeable for me.

    Bottom line is: removed this plugin because it locked me out of my own site. Have zero time to deal with that type of thing. Security is ostensible and plugin is designed to make you think it changes something, when in reality it does nothing.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author WFSupport

    (@wfsupport)

    1 year, 11 months ago

    Thanks for your thoughts on the plugin.

    I’m a little confused here. Did you actually look at the IPs being blocked and compare them to the access logs? Because you can see the IPs actually trying to get in and Wordfence blocking them in the server access logs. I’m betting you did not because you certainly wouldn’t have made such an accusation if you had. Would you like to know why you aren’t seeing any attacks on the site after uninstalling Wordfence? Because whatever security solution you now use is not alerting you to them or missing the attacks entirely. That means it is only a matter of time before one of the attempts gets through. I hope you find a reputable plugin or security solution that includes a firewall because not seeing the attacks is not the same thing as the attacks not happening.

    When you requested a refund for the auto renewal that you did not turn off, you said “I had disabled Wordfence on my blog months ago because it was locking me out of my own site and I didn’t have time to be troubleshooting it.” Blaming us for a lockout without opening a ticket or making a post to ask for help is kind of unfair, don’t you think? If I bought a car and I couldn’t unlock it, I’d go to the dealership and ask them to fix it. Or I’d call a locksmith for assistance. I’m not sure why you, with access to Premium support no less, couldn’t take 2 minutes to open a support request or send us an email to let us help. We even have paid and trained staff in our forums to help. It would have likely been sorted within a short amount of time. It is important to note that lockouts are based on the settings a site owner chooses. The default settings are set to 20 tries so it’s pretty hard to lock yourself out with them.

    At any rate, we appreciate your taking the time to post a review so that at least we could help you understand why we disagree with your comments, especially the part that implies we lie about attacks on your site because nothing could be farther from the truth.

    Tim

    Thread Starter theforwardmale

    (@theforwardmale)

    1 year, 11 months ago

    I appreciate the response, but you can’t blame the market/customer for his or her experience. People aren’t coding/plugin experts. They just expect a certain experience and that’s the end of it. And mine happened to be that I was locked out of my own site having done absolutely nothing wrong during crucial updating that led to completely unnecessary problems. People aren’t thinking about opening tickets. It’s just: Can I get my site back up fast. Was lucky to deactivate the plugin through the WordPress App on the mobile. Never reactivated it and removed it. Any time I checked stats on the plugin I’d see X number of “bots” being blocked. Real or not, people sort of understand that in 2020 there’s a lot of background noise from Google, etc. Bottom line is nothing changed after removing the plugin. Just letting you know my experience. Maybe it’s not convenient my comments here but don’t blame the customer. And just want to say once again, thank you for sorting out the financial stuff during the charge that occurred after the fact. I appreciate you as a person doing a good thing for someone else. Keep doing that for your customers. People can see my experience here if they choose to read it, but they’ll also read that your customer service was good and you refunded the charge at the end.

    Plugin Author WFSupport

    (@wfsupport)

    1 year, 11 months ago

    Thanks for your thoughts but you didn’t say that. You said we made it up which is untrue. That’s what I want to correct. And if you got locked out immediately which it sounded like then it was because of a setting that was set after the installation. No one is questioning your experience. But was it a fair assessment of the plugin? Not really. You had a problem and instead of asking for help or reading the online docs, you uninstalled it and left a bad review, which is your right to do so. We respect that. However, just like you, we also have the right to disagree with that review which we did. We also have the right to correct misleading information (the made up attacks) which we did.

    We’re not here trying to win you over or get you to try Wordfence again. We honestly hope you have a better experience with whatever security solution you choose to go with in the future. Just maybe think about asking for help before leaving and deciding they weren’t doing their job. You may be surprised how supportive they are when you ask.

    Tim

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