Consumer Blog
How to handle spam scams
Missouri consumer writes:
What is the Email of the Federal Trade Commission? I received a very bad email and I want to report them. How do I go about this? In my email software, when I click to designate an Email as Spam, does that get permanently get rid of it?
The federal government wants e-mail scams sent to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. This is a federal agency that monitors consumer complaints about online scams and fraud and looks for patterns to track down the crooks.
As for your question about designating spam, that will depend on your software and the cleverness of the spammer. E-mail programs let you block an entire address or even parts of an address - for example, you could block any address with the word "sex" in it. But if I'm a clever spammer, I'll send mail from lots of different addresses, so I'll have a good chance of getting through -- at least the first time.
Technorati Tags: Internet Crime Complaint Center, email scams, spam, spam filtering, moagoconsumer, consumer protection
Posted by on July 10, 2007 8:44 am :: Comments (7) :: Permalink
7 Responses to "How to handle spam scams"
says:
March 19, 2008 9:28 am
I get at least one bank scam email a day-what is your office doing about this? I do not respond to them, and I report them if I can find the information on the bank on their web site; the bank are doing NOTHING but telling people how to spot the email-not what to do or how to report them. What is your office doing to prevent and prosecute these bandits? I realize the law is reactive-not proactive-but you would think we would have learned something in the last 200 years-the faces and methods change of crime changes-but the law remains the same-useless to combat the ever changing landscape of scams and snake oil sales.
says:
March 19, 2008 10:00 am
To Jeff:
Again, the best way to handle these is to foward them to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (see link above in original blog post).
75% come from outside the country.
says:
June 5, 2008 9:55 am
I just received a E-mail that was a death threat . it said someone has paid to have me killed what should I do
says:
June 6, 2008 9:36 am
To Harry:
This is known as the hitman scam. Do not send any money. You can forward this e-mail to the FBI at this link.
says:
June 26, 2008 8:52 am
I KEEP GETTING THIS KIND OF JUNK IN MY E MAIL. THERE USE TO BE A MISSOURI WEBSITE WHERE ONE COULD FORWARD THIS TYPE OF SUSPICIOUS SPAM. NOW THE ONLY SITE I SEE IS THIS FEDERAL REPORTING SITE. SINCE I WAS NOT PERSONALLY VICTIMIZED I DON'T THINK THIS IS THE APPROPRIATE FORUM TO REPORT TO. DO YOU HAVE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS ? YOU NEED TO GET THESE CROOKS OFF THE INTERNET BEFORE THEY ROB SOME TRUSTING SENIOR CITIZEN E mail below received June 26,2008 Office Of The Auditor General, Abuja, Nigeria, Sir, Letter Of Absolute Financial Confidence/ Partnership. I mr Peter Brennan,wish to inform you of the report of the 1990 – 2008 contract award audit. It pleases me to bring to your notice some foundamental contract awarding errors as managed and handled by Nigerian authorized agencies and parastetals. As shown in the National Gazette,and recorded by the ministry of finance, Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) Nigeria National Petroleum Coperation(NNPC), Petroleum and Pipeline Maintainance Coperation (PPMC). It has been published to the notice of all citizens, that there were foundamental errors in the process that gave rise to the contracts awarded within the stated period by these bodies, hence the presidency and the house of assembly issued an automatum to my office to carry out a vivid audit in these parastetals to determine excesses and abuse of office by the principal officers. It was during the process of auditing these parastatals,I discovered that contract sums were inflated and money was paid without due process to foreign companies in collaboration with some Nigeria Officials who had interests in these companies. I wish to relate my last discovery of a floating fund to the tune of 10 million dollars in a local bank account which has remained dormant since 1990. During my personal investigation, I discovered it belongs to a foreign contractor who carry out a turn-around maintainance of the NNPC pipe lines in Excravos in 1990, but later died in an Auto Crash with the family.All effort to trace the next of Kin has proved abortive since then. Hence I creave your indulgence to partner with me to transfer the floating funds to a foreign account since it was domiciled for onward transfer to a foreign Bank account.While I solicit to this, I do not wish to put my job at any risk, thereby request that you threat this mail with utmost secrecy irrespective of your decision. Please Note that; *The contractor was certified and the contract executed properly. *The funds were released to his nominated local account for onward transfer. *The account has remained dormant since 1990 and unoperational. *The funds will be confiscated to the govermnebt treasury if Iincluded in my findings which I will not do. *The contractor has no listed next of kin. *I will provide all documentary evidences to transfer the funds without delays . *we shall agree on percentage sharing at the end of the transfer. *Signify your interest by sending your accoount and personal details to my secretary. (danagu01@yahoo.com) *All transactions will be treated legimately without any risk or failure. Yours faithfully Peter Brennan (Auditor General)
says:
November 25, 2008 5:51 pm
What do I do about a scam with checks on items I have on graigs list? This person has sent me 3 checks $3150.00 each asking me to cash them take out the item cost and shipping and western union the rest to him along with the item.
says:
December 1, 2008 9:21 am
To David and Hesser:
As it suggests in the blog post, you can send this to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
