Email Scam “Administrative Assistant Position - Part-Time”

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 13:08:34 -0400
notice

Below is an example of a job scam reported to the Department of Information Technology (DoIT). The scammer, impersonating Career Center, is using a fake/spoofed email address <career-services@umbc.edu> that might look similar to Career Center’s real email <careers@umbc.edu>, but can also be easily differentiated by comparing the two.

From: career-services@umbc.edu

Date: March 15, 2021 at 11:29:00 PM EDT

To:

Subject: Administrative Assistant Position - Part-Time

<username>

You have been offered a Spring 2021 Internship opportunity at the convenience of your home or, Which serve as a gateway to pay all expenses incurred during this pandemic. This opportunity should be done at leisure taking at most 1hr/day, 2-3 times a week.

Please send your resume to;

Email: bartonm078@gmail.com for the job description.

Career Services

UMBC.

In the example above, the scammer is trying to impersonate the Career Center of UMBC to offer users a part-time job. The email claims that users must contact the sender at the provided “gmai.coml” address to get the job. The job offer is fake. The message is a scam. Please do not reply to this or any similar email.

This message does show some red flags that suggest phishing: poor grammar, incorrect punctuation and a gmail.com address instead of a UMBC email address. Notice how words like “which” is capitalized after a comma. This is not the type of grammar, punctuation or capitalization most would expect from a professional email. Further, no legitimate organization will tell you to respond to a “gmail.com” account to show your interest in the job.

The sender’s fake email address also can be easily differentiated from the Career Center’s real email address :

Scammer Email Address: <career-services@umbc.edu>

UMBC Career Center’s Actual Email Address: <careers@umbc.edu>

What to do now?

If you do receive any of these scams shown above or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether or not you responded to the scam, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.