Over the past academic year, SVSU students and staff email have been receiving a numerous amount of scam messages. Many of which pretend to be from SVSU Departments like the President’s Office and IT Department and ask for money and account information.
When getting suspicious messages on your school email, remember to check the account it was sent from to confirm if it was sent from a legitimate SVSU email.
I recently received one of these scam messages about my own SVSU account being deleted within the next 24-hours from the “IT Department” and it was my “final warning”.
The message said I could fill out a form on an attached website to cancel the deletion. At first, like anyone else concerned about their account, I went to the website to stop the “deletion” but the website itself asked for all my account information, including security questions. That’s what prompted me to look further into the person who sent me the message.
I first investigated the email of the sender. At first glance, it looked legitimately like any other SVSU email, but the “svsu.edu” at the end was actually capitalized. That wasn’t enough for me to be convinced that it was scam though.
I looked through my email history and I had never received a “first warning” about my account deletion, only the most recent message about my “final warning”.
I then cross-referenced the sender’s name with the list of IT Department Staff, and the name was not there. To put the final nail in the coffin, I noticed a strange URL at the end of the weblink. It said “ukit.me”, which upon further investigation was found to be a website builder.
I did submit a phish report to IT but haven’t received word of anything being done about it yet. When receiving these messages and confirming they are indeed a scam, make sure to block and report them so you and other students won’t be contacted by them again.
If you do end up falling for any of these scams, immediately contact the SVSU IT Department to get your account secured once again and change your password. If money was involved, contact your personal bank as soon as possible to get the transaction canceled.
These scammers will do anything to get what they want from you. Whether it be money, goods, or personal/account information, they will go great lengths to get it. Always make sure you know that whoever it is that messages you are who they say they are before giving them your information or money.
Always be on the lookout for evidence of a scam when receiving emails from accounts you’ve never received messages from before. It never hurts to be thorough and ensure that your information is in good hands.
