The start of a new semester tends to bring along an uptick in email scams. There are a few email scams that we’re seeing with greater frequency.
- Fake Invoice/Receipt – If you receive an invoice or a receipt from a vendor that you do not recognize or an item that you did not purchase, it is likely a scam. If you would like to verify the legitimacy of an invoice, you can forward the email to Purchasing. If you receive something similar to your personal email, you can usually verify the legitimacy by looking at the sender’s email address. If it did not come from a domain that belongs to the seller, it is likely a scam.
- Impersonation of a Superior – The most common scam continuously targeting the college is a spear phishing campaign, a phishing scam that directly targets an individual or small group instead of a large group of people. This one has the scammer impersonating someone’s superior – director, department chair, AVP, or even cabinet-level positions. The email will come from an address that is not a Providence College account (the first sign that it’s a scam). They usually ask if you have time, saying that they cannot call you or are in a meeting. If you respond, you’ll likely be asked to purchase gift cards and send the card numbers via email.
- To minimize these types of scams, the IT Department recommends removing email address information for individual staff from external departmental websites, only including a generic departmental email address. If your department or group does not have a departmental email address, you can request one. Submit a request for a departmental email address via Team Dynamix
- Student Job – A common scam targeting students is an offer for a job, often impersonating career or student employment staff at the college. The college does not send out information about individual jobs to the student body nor are job applications handled via email. If you receive an email advertising a student job, it is likely a scam and should be ignored. A good rule of thumb for unsolicited job information sent via email is “if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not true.” Visit the Student Employment webpages for full information on applying for student jobs on campus.
When reviewing your email, be sure to stay aware of our email security features. All emails from outside sources will have [External] in the email subject along with a banner in the body of the email warning that the email came from a sender outside the college.
Please report email scams to Microsoft. This helps to improve their email filtering, preventing these scams from reaching our inboxes. If you are unsure of the legitimacy of an email, submit an email scam verification request via Team Dynamix, and one of our Helpdesk representatives will verify if it’s a scam or legitimate.
