Email and social media scams have targeted the Colorado State University community in recent weeks. These scams aim to be as sophisticated as possible to trick unsuspecting recipients.
Scams use one or more of these elements to hook a potential victim and obtain money:
- Random, unsolicited requests for money or financial information, or offers of money or a job.
- High pressure tactics including intimidation, fear of harm to yourself or someone else, or high pressure to trust the scammer or do what they say before they will stop communicating with you.
- Intimidation, threats, and fear, including threats of embarrassment, harm to the caller/scammer, harm to you, or others.
The best defense is to be very suspicious of any emails, social media messages, texts or any online messages from someone asking for money. If it is someone you have not met in person and the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Employment scams
Recently, scams have come through CSU email that appear to be from a CSU email address and include the CSU Career Center logo. These emails display several hallmarks of a scam:
- It asks for a non-edu email address to communicate with you.
- It’s an unsolicited email from someone that you’ve never communicated with that advertises a personal assistant position.
- It is advertised as a high-paying, no experience necessary, remote-work position.
You will occasionally receive emails regarding jobs from the CSU Career Center, but these will always…
