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Faculty, staff, and students are back on campus, as are the email and internet scams. These unsavory characters tend to use unsolicited emails and messaging, or fictitious job or scholarship offers to entice students into scams or unsafe situations. They also lurk in search sites for jobs and scholarships. While the internet is an excellent resource and the majority of opportunities are legitimate, it is important to stay alert.

To help you navigate online resources safely, Carthage has a number of resources available for you:

Library and Information Services (LIS) has created the following safety tips to follow:

  • Look at the sender; if the person is from outside of Carthage, be very careful, especially if the address includes a foreign suffix (.ru, .nz, .mk)
  • Look at the body of the message; if there is virtually no message, or if the message has grammatical or spelling errors, it is more likely to be a scam. If the message sounds urgent and/or too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.
  • Look at who it was addressed to; if your address is one of many, or if your address is in the bcc field, then the sender is sending to lots of people in hope of finding one or two gullible people to follow through.
  • Watch out for links or attachments. Don’t follow links or open attachments in emails that look even remotely suspicious. This includes documents that are “shared with you.”
  • If you are asked to provide cash, check, or credit card, don’t give it unless you are absolutely certain of who you are dealing with. Reputable scholarship sources and future employers don’t require you to pay them.
  • Check if it was marked Spam or Dangerous by Google. If the message is already in your Spam folder or has a warning banner from Google, just leave it alone! Google marks things as spam for a reason, so don’t go through your Spam folder and open messages unless you are looking for something specific that you believe was classified as spam in error. However, just because Google doesn’t mark it as spam doesn’t mean it’s safe.
  • If you get a suspicious message, just delete it. If you have already clicked on a link, opened an attachment or “logged in” somewhere, take these steps to protect yourself:
    • Change your password at https://password.carthage.edu
    • Scan your computer for viruses with your anti-virus and/or a tool like MalwareBytes. Carthage provides Symantec Anti-virus for free, just ask for more information at the library.

The College will not send warnings for all scams, but we do maintain a page of threats that are known to us. Click here to see current threats.

Be careful! Be safe.