When University of Memphis student Courtney Carpenter received an email on her University account about a court appearance,
she assumed it was because of a parking ticket.
She had no idea it was a scam.
“It was on my school account, so I thought it would be legit,” Carpenter, 19, a psychology sophomore from Atoka, Tennessee, said.
The email was sent to many students at the University and said: “You have to appear in Court on 20th February, 2016.” A copy of a “court notice” was attached to the email.
The scam appeared to be sent by “Caley Ann Petty,” but it was signed “Yours faithfully, Racheal Nicole Calbert, Court Secretary.”
Both are students at the University, but neither sent the email.
“I’ve been receiving a lot of feedback about the email,” Petty, a 20-year-old accounting student at Memphis, said. “Mostly confused students — some were not so nice. It’s mostly people trying to get some closure.”
It appears that Petty’s University email was hacked.
The hackers sent out emails to several students under her name in an attempt to illegally acquire information from other students.
“I’ve been receiving a bunch of emails about this court date, which is ridiculous, because no one has court on Saturday,” Petty said.
Petty said the experience has been exhausting. As late as Thursday, students were still calling her to ask about the hack. She said she just wants to move on.
University officials told Petty to change her password and advised others who might have fallen for the fake email to do the same.
The Office of Student Conduct sent an official email to all students with the subject line “Phishing Email Alert.” Phishing is a form of fraud sent from a credible source that asks for personal information, like credit card and Social Security numbers and personal passwords.
In this case, the scam only asked for University usernames and passwords.
“If you received an email which resembles the email shown below or one from another sender with the attachment court.html, please delete it!” said the email from student conduct.
Unfortunately, some students did fall for the attack.
“I clicked on the link and put my information in on my phone, so I thought that’s why it wasn’t working,” Carpenter said. “I texted someone that I know in the scholarship office and checked into it.
She called the student court and then told me to change my password.”
Even though only some received the email, many students are worried about the safety and privacy of their online school activity.
“I didn’t get the email, but it’s ridiculous that someone would do that,” Alexis Hagen, 19, a social work freshman from Hot Springs, Arkansas, said.
Shelby Bowden, 19, a teaching all learners sophomore from Bartlett, did not receive the spam email, but is concerned.
“If they hacked someone’s email account and got other emails, they could possibly hack in to our University accounts,” Bowden said
