Reporting Fraudulent Websites with your Browser
When you receive an email that has links to a fraudulent site, you should report that site, to your browser provider so that other users can be saved from falling into the intended trap.
When you are sent to a site that the email tells you is giving you something, and when you arrive you are asked to make a payment, that is a form of misrepresentation; which is phishing. You should report phishing sites to Google:
https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en
The advantage of reporting to Google is that they will adjust Google Chrome to warn people, and that is currently the most popular browser on Earth.
If the site you are sent to by a suspicious email tries to download a file to your computer (no matter what the file pertains to be) then it is most likely a malicious software site. These pages should be reported by pasting the URL in the browser address bar into the following Google page for malicious software sites:
https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en
You can also read about Google's preventative measures programme against harmful internet use here:
https://safebrowsing.google.com/
If you are using Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, you can also report fraudulent sites.
You can open the old style Internet Explorer by pressing the Windows Button + R and entering iexplore and pressing OK.
From the Safety menu, point to SmartScreen Filter, then click Report Unsafe Website.
Select one or both of the following check boxes you feel to be appropriate:
- I think this is a phishing website
- I think this website contains malicious software
If you are using Firefox, or if you wish to report the site to Mozilla to help more people, you can report fraudulent sites to Mozilla here:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/fraud-report/
Here you can choose from:
- Domain name
- Collecting personal information
- Charging for software
- Logo misuse (phishing)
- Distributing modified Mozilla/Malware
And choose which products are affected.
In general it is always worth checking that the site is secured - by seeing if there is a padlock in the browser address bar or that the https has gone green etc. - and that the domain is correct. The domain must be the last item in the address bar before the first / (forward slash) as many fraudulent domains trick us by using facebook.com-uerjfnf0e837e3e0d0y.uzbxyn.com/webapp/ye.js or facebook.com.wifubd97fidn9.interstrartter.net/webapp/ku.js similar. Notice that the facebook.com is followed by a hyphen or a dot instead of the forward slash / that represents the end of the domain.
