Recently our Lions Club email address has received a number of Spam & Phishing emails. I have also experienced this with text messages on my personal cell phone. Scammers send fake text messages to trick you into giving them your personal information – things like your password, account number, or Social Security number. If they get that information, they could gain access to your email, bank, or other accounts. Or they could sell your information to other scammers. Note 1
I decided to do some research on how to block & report these Spam & Phishing emails & text messages and I am sharing some of the things I have found.
After some initial help from my daughter, Lion Laurel, I found many resources. A detailed article on my research can be found at https://www.blindvoicescoalition.org/span-and-phishing/.
If there is an organization that I have not included, simply do a search on Spam & Phishing “organization name”.
Blocking the sender is always a good idea and fairly easy to do. It is my impression that people who do this type of activity frequently change the email address & subject so this is not a totally effective method. The same is basically true for text messages. You should also consider reporting the person sending the email or text message. This might require some decision on your part. For instance, one of the recent Spam/Phishing emails used a Gmail email address but the email referred to an iPhone ordered on amazon. I opted to contact Google about investigating the email user.
There is way too much detail to include in an article such as this, so I will mainly give references. My detailed notes can be found at https://www.blindvoicescoalition.org/span-and-phishing/.
- FTC Consumer Information – How To Recognize and Report Spam Text Messages – https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-report-spam-text-messages#spam
- Apple – Block phone numbers, contacts, and emails on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch – https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229
- Google – Avoid and report Google scamshttps://support.google.com/faqs/answer/2952493?hl=en
- I would like to report a Gmail user who has sent messages that violate the Gmail Program Policies and/or Terms of Use. https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse
- I would like to report a Gmail user who has sent messages that violate the Gmail Program Policies and/or Terms of Use. https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse
- Android – Block or UnBlock a phone number – https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/6325463
- MicroSoft
- Protect yourself from phishing – MicroSoft https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/protect-yourself-from-phishing-0c7ea947-ba98-3bd9-7184-430e1f860a44
- How to protect against phishing attacks – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/intelligence/phishing
- Amazon – Report Suspicious Emails- Amazon https://aws.amazon.com/security/report-suspicious-emails/
- If you wish to report a suspicious email claiming to be from Amazon that you believe is a forgery, you may submit a report. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201127830
- If you wish to report a suspicious email claiming to be from Amazon that you believe is a forgery, you may submit a report. You may also forward phishing emails and other suspected forgeries directly to stop-spoofing@amazon.com.
Some additional information from the Google website:
Where to report Spam – Phishing
https://support.google.com/faqs/answer/10123027
You may wish to file a report with the appropriate authorities and/or your regional fraud reporting center — such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov)
You may also contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/contact.shtm, call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to the following address:
Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580
If your complaint is against a company in a country other than the United States, you can file it at http://www.econsumer.gov. You can also find information on where to report in locations outside the United States at econsumer.gov.
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Note 1: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-report-spam-text-messages#spam