While filling in forms on our site you may well be asked to copy a "Verification Code" from an image into a text box in order to continue. In basic terms, this is so that we can be 100% sure that it is a human being submitting the request to us, and not an automatic program or "robot".
These robots are primarily responsible for filling in forms on a website, but instead of requesting real help they simply fill the comments or question box with SPAM and we are then inundated with electronic junk-mail, something we all want to do with out!
If you'd like to know more about this scheme (commonly known as 'CAPTCHA') please see the Wikipedia information page on CAPTCHA