Reporting a Phishing, Scam, or Abusive email to a financial institution or an Internet company
In most cases, a large financial institution is going to have an email address where you can send them a copy of a phishing or scam email or website.
I won't get in details about scams in general, I have my Scam Website about that with many emails I've received over the years.
What I like is to have a list of those email addresses because in some cases, it's rather difficult to find them. That way I will have a place for them. You may want to verify before using those email addresses since they may change over time.
To report an SMS, you can forward it to your carrier for free using the 7726 (which spells SPAM) short code. That works whatever the institution/company you are working with. However, it means it gets sent to the carrier (mobile company) and not the expected destination. The carrier may share the data with the concerned institution/company, though.
| Institution / Company | Scam/Abuse Contact email |
|---|---|
| Amazon | reportascam@amazon.com1 |
| American Express | spoof@americanexpress.com |
| Blue Cross California |
stopfraud@blueshieldca.com promisestopfraud@blueshieldca.com medicarestopfraud@blueshieldca.com |
| CapitalOne | abuse@capitalone.com |
| Charles Schwab | phishing@schwab.com |
| Chase |
abuse@chase.com phishing@chase.com |
| CitiBank | spoof@citi.com |
| CoinBase | security@coinbase.com |
| namecheap | abuse@namecheaphosting.com |
| Paypal | phishing@paypal.com |
| Wells Fargo | reportphish@wellsfargo.com |
Why is it a good idea to report such?
Well... if you can identify scams in general, you're probably safe anyway. That being said, once in a while you may end up following a link to a hacker's site. If someone had reported them, maybe the site would have been taken down and you would have been safe.
- 1. Note that Amazon says to use this email address if you do not have an Amazon account. I think it's still the simplest, whether you have an account or not.
