How To Report Spam

Our email boxes invariably receive a variety of unsolicited commercial email or spam. While some of it has legitimate business purposes, spam is often generated for criminal or fraudulent schemes such as identity theft. Here are steps that you can take to report on the spam you receive.

First, you need to view the headers of the spam email. This information allows you to determine the original sender of the message. Step-by-step instructions for viewing headers in many popular email programs are detailed on the Help Desk Central web site.

After viewing the full headers and determining the original sender, you can do the following:

• Send email to abuse@domain.com, based on the "domain.com" name found in the spam email header.
• Report the spam to an official source. Depending on the type of spam received, there are different options for where to send your complaint. You can view this information at the US Department of Justice web site.

If you need assistance or you have any questions about spam you have received, contact security@net.tamu.edu. Please include the full headers of a message so that we can help determine where it originated.