Since September, the Mount Royal community has been targeted by a gift card scam.  With this scam, criminals send you an email that looks like it comes from your supervisor asking you if you are available. If you respond, they ask you to purchase gift cards and send them photos of the redemption codes. This past weekend another 300 or so Mount Royal inboxes received one of these scam emails.

Fortunately, we had more people reporting them than we had people responding to them. Some of those that did respond sent out personal information such as where they were located, photos and their plans for the weekend. To our knowledge, no one went as far as purchasing gift cards. We are thankful for that.

Realizing that you gave scammers personal information about yourself just feels creepy. It is also dangerous.  The criminals can then take that information and use it as content in malicious emails that are sent to yourself or others. This makes the emails seem legitimate  increasing the likely hood that someone will be tricked.

In addition to being dangerous, conversing with the scammers encourages them to continue targeting Mount Royal. If they get a response to an email, they know it is only a matter of time before they convince someone to follow through and purchase those gift cards. Ignoring their inquiries will not stop the attempts, but it will reduce their frequency.

The best way to defend yourself from giving out personal information to criminals is to check the sender’s email address before you read the body of the email.  That way you have a better idea of who you are talking to before you respond. They may still be a hacker, but the odds are much smaller. Just by taking this small simple step you greatly reduce your chances of sharing information that you wish you hadn’t.