REPORTING SPAM

Well known ISP's such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Orange, BT, et cetera are always interested in getting a spam or scam report. They will reply to you and let you know of any outcome if their regulations permit. ISP's come in different shapes, sizes and flavours. There are some which provide connectivity around the World (i.e. you can't create an email account with them) and transfer internet requests and process email in-and-out 24/7, and some who will host your domain and provide email facilities. The vast majority are very responsible organisations and will always block somebody who is misbehaving.

There are a few who allow their facilities to be used by anyone for anything. They are slow to respond or don't respond at all to reports of spam originating from their network. They are the ones that are usually blocked by your own ISP, but that takes time. For example, I could set up a Yahoo or BT email address and send spam from it, but my existence would be short lived because they would be on my case within hours.

So, Spammers are unlikely to come from the big ISP's although the email says they do. Scammers may often use legitimate email accounts and then direct you to another email address in their message.

Until the internet is policed by one central authority which will accept all spam or scam reports no matter where they purport to be from, then we have to accept that any Internet Service Provider (ISP) will only investigate abuse reports that are found to originate from their own subscribers. That information unfortunately, is not easy to readily determine for the average user.

So don't send "John" a nasty reply to a spam email, because it's not from him (if he actually exists!). Use the tools below to help you determine the true origin of the sender and run a lookup report with Spamcop.

ISP's usually have an internal email address to report abuse of their network called abuse@[followed by the name of the ISP] so if you want to report spam, then forward your spam email to them at that address (they will also want a copy of the Internet Header to help them find out who sent it). Don't always expect to receive a reply (albeit automated) after you have sent in your spam report. You might also want to try postmaster@ or info@ .

What you do with a spam email is your prerogative. If endless spam drives you completely bonkers then perhaps you should do something about it? Personally, I don't mind the occasional unsolicited email about stuff that might be useful or relevant because that's what sales & marketing is all about but to receive continual mindless drivel about "craving my indulgence", lottery winnings, investments to radar, obesity, loan approvals or drugs to enhance sexual performance to name but a few spam themes, is just not cricket! But, it's your call - think a moment before your send a spam report - is it spam or simply a honest sales enquiry?

http://www.dnsstuff.com/	DNS Stuff DNS tools, DNS hosting tests, WHOIS, traceroute, ping and other network and domain name tools. Comprehensive and easy to use. A very handy tool for the enthusiast or professional.
http://spam.deadbeef.com/lookup.php	Lookup a domain or IP to get contact details to report spam or Security Violation. This report gives you the email addresses of the persons responsible for dealing with email abuse on a given network. If there are several contacts, simply block, copy & paste into your email TO: section.
http://www.spamcop.com/	SpamCop - Fight back SPAM! Paste the internet header and body of text into the form and Spamcop works to figure out who sent it. It also creates a ready-made spam-report email to send.
http://www.geobytes.com/	Spam Origin Locator - Enter an email header to find its geographic route across the internet Very useful tool, especially with an email you suspect is a scam or from a phisher.