"Gmail Critical Security Alert for Your Account" Scam

my wife received a phone from Google security team. she asked to contact them at [408]657-3584. the call was received today 4/5 at 1300 hours regarding suspicious activity on my google account

It is a scam, Google doesn't call you regarding suspicious activity on your account.

I received such a critical security alert ...
I followed the instructions and as a consequence now have a "recovery email" linked account, which receives all sorts of junk mail.
How can I get back to the way it was before without the "recovery email" linked account.
In other words, how can I unlink the "recovery email" address?
Hoping to get things normalized,
Reiner

On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app.
In the top-left, touch the Menu Menu.
Scroll down and tap Settings.
Tap the Gmail account you’d like to unlink.
Tap Unlink in category Linked Account.
You will then ask you if you’d like to keep all the emails that we imported into your Gmail mailbox from your other account.
If you remove them from Gmail, they’ll still be in the inbox of your other provider (for example, Outlook or Yahoo! Mail).
If you keep them in Gmail, they’ll stay in your Gmail account. However, if you move or delete them in Gmail, these actions won’t be reflected in your other account.
After you unlink your accounts, Gmail will stop showing you new messages from your other account.

what you are suggesting doesn't seem to work for me - I have a desktop computer, and I am using Thunderbird as an email client.

I have received a very realistic looking email headed 'Critical Security Alert' purporting to be from Google (no-reply@accounts.google.com).
However the email address it uses for me is not the user name for my Google account.
There is a button for signing in, asking me for password.
Am I right to be suspicious?

Yes, you are right to be suspicious. You should never click on links in emails to sign into your accounts.
Go directly to myaccount.google.com and sign into your account from there. If something is wrong with your account, you will be notified after signing in.

I seem to have accumulated about 30 emails in my junk folder regarding Google mail not being able to be delivered...something about bulk mail. This article has helped me figure the malicious intent.
Thank you.

moneygramindia12018@cash4u.com identify this email address.

I didn't realize this was a scam and pushed the "check activity" button and tried to sign in. AGH- what do I do?!

change your password.