Surfing the Internet, you came across a site practically the same as the one from which you usually buy, which has put on sale the object you wanted, at a price that define bargain is almost reductive: your desire to shop was stronger than your will and, without hesitating further, you took out your credit card and bought that good you cared so much about. Something, however, went wrong and the article never arrived at your home and, as if that were not enough, the contacts reported on that website never responded to your reminders.
If what I just wrote sounds familiar to you, then check this article which may help you, and by the way, to prevent this from happening to you I recommend you to check my article about How to recognize a fake site.
Report a scam site to the State Police
As you might expect, the main body to report a scam site or report a computer crime is the Postal Police division of the State Police department: if, after collecting the “evidence” of the fraud against you, you do not intend to physically go to the station closest to your home, you can report or file a complaint using the electronic portal made available by the state body.
Keep in mind that reporting a site is different from making a real complaint (this last operation, at the time of writing, cannot be done on the site of the State Police as there is a restructuring of the system, which leads interested users to make a complaint by physically going to the nearest police station).
To proceed with the report, go to the Postal Police website and fill in the text fields required and select the topic of the report using the appropriate menu (e.g. Defacement, Phishing, etc.).
Next, in the URL text field of the counterfeit site, paste or write in full the address of the scam site and indicate when you saw the violation.
Depending on the topic of the report, you may also need to provide the URL of the page that underwent the change, the URL of the original site, the URL to report, and other details.
As soon as you have provided all the necessary information, describe the incident using the text field Leave a comment, put the check mark on the box I am not a robot and then, send the report by clicking on the appropriate button, located at the bottom of the page.
I recommend, even if the report does not have the same value as the report, do not abuse this tool: report only pages that you think are illegal: in this way you will avoid that police officers lose precious time that they could use to help other citizens. Understood?
Report a scam site to Google
Have you started the procedure to report the scam site to the State Police and would you like to repeat the operation also with the Google search engine, so as to request the elimination of the fraudulent site from the search page and keep other Internet users safe from the related risks?
Perfect, this is the section for you: I want to tell you right away that the procedure is much simpler than the one seen above and that it does not require more than a handful of clicks (and seconds). So, to begin with, connected to this Google page, click on the button corresponding to the type of impropriety found (Report spam content, Report paid links, Report malware or Report phishing) and, if necessary, log in to your Google account.
Then carefully follow the instructions shown on the screen to complete the report (usually you must provide the “offending” URL and send the report by clicking on the appropriate button).
If you intend to report the sale of counterfeit goods by a scam site, instead connect to this page and fill out the form proposed in all its parts, and then finalize the report by clicking on the Send button located below.
Report a scam site via social networks
Now that you have reported the site to the highest competent authorities, do you feel the need to complete the work by intervening on social networks, with the specific intent to penalize people, pages and profiles that advertise the fraudulent activity you found? Sounds like a good idea to me! Below I am going to provide you with instructions on how to act through the most popular social networks. Of course, only report posts, profiles, and pages that violate.
The first social network I want to talk to you about is Facebook: usually, fraudulent websites are advertised through fake profiles and pages, which you can promptly report if necessary.
What? Very simple: identify the “incriminated” post and, bearing in mind that the procedure is almost identical both from desktop and from apps for smartphones and tablets, presses the button (…) corresponding to the post in question, choose the item Report the post, select the type of activity you encountered (e.g. Spam) and, after making sure what is not allowed to post on Facebook through the notice that has appeared, presses the Send button to finalize everything.
If you want, instead, to report an entire profile or an entire page, proceed as follows: after going to the profile / page you are interested in reporting, select the button (…) located at the top of the page that opens on the screen, select the item Find assistance or report the profile / page, then define the problem encountered (e.g. Fake account) and send the report by pressing the appropriate button. It’s that simple, isn’t it?
Reporting inappropriate content on Instagram, just like with Facebook, is extremely simple.
First, identify the content related to the website in question in the stream of the Instagram app or on the web page of the portal site, presses the symbol of the three dots attached to the latter, select the item Report / Report inadequacy, choose the reason for reporting from the proposed options (e.g. Scam or fraud) and press the Next button.
If, on the other hand, you intend to report an entire profile, go to it and, after pressing the symbol of the three dots attached to the latter, tap on the words Report …, select the word Report account, specify why you want to report the account (e.g. Post content that shouldn’t be on Instagram) and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the operation.
Are you going to report a Twitter account that spams a scam page? Again, the reporting procedure is very simple, and I am going to explain it to you.
After identifying the post that you consider offending, you must press on the symbol of the three dots and then select the item Report Tweet in the menu that opens. Then provide the reason why you are reporting the content (e.g. It is a suspicious or spam account), possibly indicating the subcategory related to the type of report (e.g. Includes links to a potentially malicious, malicious, or phishing site.)
If, on the other hand, you find it more useful to report the entire profile of the user who tweets spam, all you have to do is go to it, press on the symbol of the three dots, press the Report item and indicate the reasons why you want to report in a similar way to what has already been explained above for tweets.
Finally, if you deem it necessary and if the scam you have received is in line with this motivation, you can send Twitter a direct report of the sale of counterfeit goods: all you have to do is connect to this page, fill out the form proposed in all its parts and follow the simple on-screen instructions to send the report.