Examples
Email:
“Hello, I’m ____, and my ____ recently passed away and would like to donate their ________ to you and your department.”
This one usually varies in name, whether it’s a partner or parent that has passed away, and differs in the musical instrument or art piece they would like to donate.
“Hello, I’m an international student/fellow/faculty wanting to study at your college and would like to connect with you regarding your university to study and receive a visa.”
This one is tricky, as we welcome all international students from around the world whose primary language may not be English. Unfortunately, these are more challenging to spot. There are usually some indicators that can help you figure out the scam! There’s copying and pasting of the University name into the text in a different font and color; they are emailing you about Biological Sciences when you might be in the Art Department, so it has nothing to do with your actual department. They may not include any personal information about themselves except a name, which you can usually copy and paste into Google and generally find another scam associated with that name. They might state college and university in the same sentence and address you as the Chancellor of the entire university when you work in an entirely different position.
“I’m responding to your inquiry about ______.”
99.99% of the time, this is regarding an inquiry you never made and should immediately discard the email. If it tells you to follow a link, please make sure the link is legitimate. Because amazon.com is different than amazoncom.org, or alaska.edu is different than alaska.com or Alaska.eduu. If it is an online site you may have visited but never put any personal information on, please follow the steps to notify OIT, as your account may be compromised.
“Congratulations, you’ve won ________”
This could be the lottery or a gift card; please click this link for a monetary award, etc.
These are all scams when you do not apply to any of these programs to win, do not recognize the email or the sender, the University will not be sending you money randomly, and no external links will be used in any sort of way. If you were to win a monetary award, it would be with a formal memo, letterhead, and form of recognition. You would receive further information and instruction from a supervisor or colleague.
Anytime you see an email addressed by "Ellen Lopez", please review who actually sent the email. It may say Ellen Lopez' name, or anyone else's but if it is not their Alaska.edu email, then it is a scam and you should immediately mark it as such.
Your email may be smart and flag these kinds of inquiries of ahead of time, but please be aware that this is a scam. We did not utilize these services, nor did we request these items. Never click on any external links to verify! If you are ever missing an invoice from a vendor, please contact the vendor directly, never reply to these emails. Do not answer these kinds of emails because they may impersonate someone else.
Julie Johnson Photography does exist, but this 20finbak @ that business does not. If you need to verify, always feel free to copy and paste the email the sender is sending into Google and see that it is not a verifiable email.
If you cannot come up with a good conclusion, always have a colleague review the email as well to make sure it's spam!
Your email will flag emails like this, but please be aware just because it shares similar information to a platform we do use, it is not to be trusted. ZoomInfo is NOT the same as Zoom.us. This is a Third Party site that got your information from Third Party sellers. Do not engage with this company as we do not do business with them in any way. Please delete and ignore.
Phone:
The UAF Police Department is warning students about a telephone scam that was reported in other parts of the country. The scam targets college students who have reported receiving a call from someone claiming to be an FBI agent and demanding repayment of a loan or tuition. The scam spoofs an FBI telephone number on caller ID, and, in some cases, the caller threatens students with arrest or not graduating unless they send payment via MoneyGram or some other method not affiliated with their school. The caller also often knows the names of their intended victims and calls their personal cell numbers and work numbers.
Phone and email scammers can be very convincing and sound legitimate. Never give out bank, credit card, or personal information to an unknown or unexpected caller.
Any type of insistent phone call where they won’t give you any serious information, are insisting to talk to your supervisor or head of your department. They won’t give you their name off the bat; they wish to talk to someone who handles finances, or they say they’re a student but do not wish to give you their ID number.
This may be someone who has trespassed or is trying to scam the university.
For any general call that insists on selling you any product of any kind, we do not engage with any salesperson over the phone. We are, first and foremost, an educational university; we are not a business wanting external 3rd party vendor resources. This includes outsourcing media to outside media managers, utilizing software purchasing to “speed up your business process,” outsourcing your phone line provider, etc. If you wish to establish a legitimate partnership or vendorship, you can contact your financial officer or your administrator to begin a conversation. Any recruiters or salespeople can be told we are not interested in their product and please take us off their call list.