College Scammers--They Exist

As we experienced on our own campus, email scams are very real and present in our everyday world. We should always check our sources if we receive an email that is out of the ordinary and not give any website personal information unless you know it is legitimate. We can quickly fall victim to a scam email. Now, the IRS is warning of a current ongoing IRS-impersonation scam targeting educational institutions with faculty and students having emails that end in “.edu”. The phishing emails are targeting colleges and universities both private and public, profit and non-profit institutions. According to the IRS, the emails display the IRS logos with subject lines such as “Tax Refund Payment” or “Recalculation of your tax refund payment” asking students and faculty members to click a link and submit a form to claim their refund. The phishing website asks taxpayers to provide their: social security number, first and last name, date of birth, prior year annual gross income, driver’s license number, current address, city, state, zip code and electronic filing PIN. If you receive this email, you should not click the link in the email and report it to the IRS. For security reasons, you should save the email using “save as” and send the email to phishing@irs.gov. If you think you have provided any information, you should consider immediately obtaining an identity protection PIN. An IP PIN is a six-digit number that prevents identity thieves from filing fraudulent tax returns in the victim’s name.

Allison Barrington - Staff Writer