On Monday, October 2, students across Point Park received an odd email from a supposed allum. This allum, “Claire Madison,” was offering to give away her dead husband’s belongings to students for no cost. This offer was too good to be true. 

Phishing Scams are a familiar find in the inbox of a Point Park Student. This one offered such goodies as a used PlayStation 5, an Apple iPhone 12, an Apple MacBook Pro, a violin, a Canon EOS 800D camera, Eric Clapton’s 1939 Martin OOO-42 guitar and a 2014 Yamaha baby grand piano. 

The email states that there is no pick up available. Instead, one was to send their address to the listed email and pay a shipping fee.

Doctor Tim Wilson, who works in the IT department at Point Park, said, “The end game is many times about monetary gain of some sort.  This is achieved in many different ways — sometimes these types of things trick you into giving up your usernames and passwords.”

“I say this all the time: if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is not true. Be vigilant. Nobody should ever ask you for money, your password or any other personal information through email,”said Wilson.

These attacks are sometimes targeted and sometimes random. Wilson currently has access to these numbers but does not know the exact number on how many students received this email. 

“We do have security in place to try and filter these things out. IT Security is a moving target though. Defenses in this space morph over time as new threats are developed by the people doing these things. When we see new approaches come our way, like this, they are reported up to our cybersecurity contacts for analysis,” said Wilson.

This odd email did not go unnoticed by students. Kay Karlie, a senior psychology major, thinks that Point Park should be doing more to prevent scams like this.  

“Most of us have the smarts to know not to fall for it. I’m more concerned for older faculty who may not know. I believed it at first because I’m gullible, but when they were just like ‘pay the delivery fees’ I was like ‘this is a scam.'” said Karlie. 

Junior stage management major Madison Koropchak showed concern that phishing emails are a prevalent issue on campus. 

“I was genuinely convinced it was real, but I didn’t click on anything,” said Koropchak, “I am genuinely concerned how this keeps happening.”

“The bad people doing this keep changing their approach and security defenses must morph to address these changes. This is not a situation that is unique to Point Park University,” said Wilson. 

IT sent an email afterwards about the phishing attempt. The email was sent to remind students to stay vigilant when it comes to phishing scams. Phishing emails have been an issue for the university over the last several years. Read about our previous coverage here. 

Be on the lookout for strange emails like this in your inbox.