The MRU community have been finding emails in their spam folder similar to this one.

The email looks like it comes from a colleague or instructor. However the email contains some red flags.  The biggest one being they are asking for your personal phone number. If they don’t already have it, they shouldn’t be asking for it. In addition, it was found in the Spam folder.

Google puts emails that it thinks are suspicious but they aren’t sure of into the Spam folder. If you see an email in your Spam folder, assume it is malicious and always confirm legitimacy with the sender before you respond.  Confirmation is best done over the phone, however in situations like this where an MRU email wasn’t used, it is enough to contact the sender through an MRU email.

It is hard to say what the end game of this scam is. However, this is often step one in a gift card scam where they compel you to purchase gift cards and then give them the redemption codes. These redemption codes can then be sold on the dark web.