reporting phishing - apple email not accepting

I tried to contact Apple about an e-mail which seemed inappropriate to me. Your customer Service notified me to send it to: reportphishing@apple.com

I did so, but the message did not go through and I got the notice "Does not appear to be a valid email address. Verify the address and try again." I tried several times with no success

This has happened before and I had to contact apple by phone. What is wrong? Please give me proper instructions. This is very frustrating.