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Why does Google ignore abuse reports?

Justin Case [PersonRank 1]

Sunday, August 24, 2008
15 years ago5,982 views

I have been reporting these West African 419 and spammer using Gmail accounts and other free e-mail domains for quite some time. I usually bait them by replying to their Gmail address left in the message or find one of the fake item lists spammed on so many message boards and reply to those e-mail with Gmail addresses. Once I receive a reply with Western Union details and requests for money including fake bank details and such. I report them along with the headers and any other incriminating evidence and send it all to:

abuse[put at-character here]gmail.com
abuse[put at-character here]google.com

now what I get is an automessage saying that they have my report and will investigate it. It's the same auto reply I get from other free e-mail servers. Except in googles case when I test message the e-mail to see if I get a bounce back showing it's been suspended. I get a reply from the scammer. in short, nothing happens. now all of the other mail servers close down the offending accounts in about 2 days. No problem. I've never had a problem with the other servers. Some like yahoo actually send me a message saying they have taken action. However google does nothing. Not once have they closed an account. Even months later I message the scammer and they are still operating and scamming.

What is googles problem. Do they not care? They have billion yet they don't operate their abuse Dept's at all. I'm starting to think they ignore the abuse reports altogether. What do you think?

Justin Case [PersonRank 1]

15 years ago #

I suggest people need to start complaining to Googles Customer Service people. If they won't do anything regarding online scammers and people using their accounts to commit crimes. people are gonna start going elsewhere to register accounts. It also leaves me not wanting to trust anybody using a Gmail address. You would think legitimate businesses using Google services would be more angry about this.

It's just quite interesting that yahoo, Hotmail and even the smaller internet domain providers will take action quickly when it comes to these scammers. i just today got another reply from hotmaIl's abuse dept. It seems they have closed another account i reported for a Nigerian Phone scammer. Of course he's just gonna open up another account quite easily but it makes it just that much harder for them to re-spam dozens of message boards with their fake item lists and new free e-mail addresses. God knows, they don't need things easier to rip off us stupid Westerners. They ought to be paying Gmail for how easy they make it for them to operate with impunity. Think of all the people that have fallen for the West African scams that have sent thousands of dollars that they can't spare to these people. Many people in Nigeria have made this there full time job. Opening up free e-mail accounts and seedling message boards with fake item lists with these free e-mail accounts for contact them from. That and their phony lottery notices and crazy business proposals or even long lost relatives leaving you a fortune in West Africa. Where you don't even have any relatives. There not the smartest scammers in the world but G-Mail sure makes it so the stupidest scammers can rip people off and keep there accounts open indefinitely.

Haochi [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

As much as Google may seem as a company without a face they are doing an excellent job in keeping those scam/spam emails out of my inbox.

They have been constantly working to improve the quality of their spam filtering tech (or so they claim, but I don't think that they are lying) and keeping the bad guys out.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/its-not-about-spam.html

It's really difficult for a company as big as Google (in term of user base) to satisfy everyone who are using its services – without charging them anything. The thing is that as long (or at least for a decade or so) as Google dominates the search engine field with their superior technology they don't have to listen to any individual complains and those complains mean pretty much nothing to them.

Oh, think of why you are targeted with the massive amount of scam emails.

Justin Case [PersonRank 1]

15 years ago #

I'm sure they are quite good at keeping spam out of the inboz's and I'm not talking about issues as that. The problem I am relating to are the actual scammers that set up Gmail accounts specifically to defraud people. The reason I am getting so much mail from them is because i answer there fake lottery notices, Phony job offers, and other nefarious business opportunities in far away West African countries. I do this so that I can prove that they are using G-mail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and other accounts to commit defraud people. Once I get reply's I send the headers and message content along with a short explanation to the abuse Dept's of the domain name server's. As I mentioned before this has been enough to close down dozens of other e-mail accounts with dozens of other free e-mail domains. The only one that does nothing about this is Gmail.

Of course they send the usual auto response and abuse ticket # with promises that each abuse report is put in the highest priority. Yet days go by, weeks go by, even months go by and the offending accounts still remain open and dozens of more message boards and phony 419 letters are mailed out using that same Gmail address. I realize if closed down they will just open a new one, but it makes it just that much harder for them to re send new letters and message boards with their new e-mail accounts and makes it a bit harder to rip people off.

It shouldn't be that difficult for a company as large as Google to at least keep there promise in their Abuse reports that they will look into the subject rather than completely ignore it. Yahoo and Microsoft are just as big as Google yet they close down these offending accounts in approx 2 days. What makes Google so different. I again ask. Don't they care? Why is it so difficult to look into the abuse reports they get. I'm not kidding when i say NONE of the accounts i have reported through them have been shut down. Usually the scammer rip someone off and changes to a new account of there own free will. Not because Google has anything to do with it. While I'd say 95%-100% of the accounts I've reported of other domains get action rather quickly. Google needs to do something. If anything they are at least lieing about putting these reports in the highest priority like they promise in their auto reply's.

Spam has nothing to do with it. I'm sure their spam filters are very well working. That takes nothing but programming know how. Taking action on abuse reports and closing down these Nigerian 419 scammers takes a live person to actually investigate each report and take the appropriate action needed which i can say does NOT happen in any case I have witnessed and has NEVER happened as far as I can tell. If any of you have had better results I'd love to hear about them but i really doubt it. I don't believe they have an active abuse dept. like they claim. I'd love to be proven wrong.

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