How Do I Make An Abuse Report?


To make an abuse reporting regarding a 419 scammer email you received, you will need to know the correct abuse department email address for the scammer's mail provider. This can (usually) be found in one of 3 places:

  • The website of the email service provider (usually on the contact, terms of service or help pages).
  • By searching the domain name in abuse.net's contact database.
  • By checking the whois details of the domain name, which can be done on DNSStuff.com.

The domain is the part of the email address after the @ symbol. For example, the domain for the email address patrick_ballstone@mr-nice-guy.com is mr-nice-guy.com and this is the part you would look-up.

You will need to include the content of the email you received from the Phone-Lad and also the complete headers.

An email header contains information about an email's journey: the server it was sent by, the server it was received by, the exact time and date that it was sent (including time zone) the IP Address it was sent from.

Complete headers are not usually displayed by default so you will need to enable this in your email client (or webmail settings). In an email client, this is often located under the menu "View" and menu-item "headers" where there will usually be the option of "Normal" or "All". Otherwise, consult the help file for your email client to find where this option is located. For webmail, it is usually in the options section but sometimes (for example gmail) the headers are accessible from within the actual email. In gmail, click "more options" and then "Show original".

As well as forwarding the email header and contents, include a brief explanation of why you are making the abuse report.

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