Warning: Scam impersonating Dr. Rao, 6/25/19
The Information Security Office has been alerted to a scam that has been sent out to several members of the VCU community. The scam is impersonating Dr. Rao and is claiming that the scammer needs a favor, which is to get several gift cards from Apple and send over the gift card information to the scammer. The scammer is using the email president020102@gmail[.]com
This is a scam that should be ignored and deleted. Several clues that this is a scam are the misspelled name, in the email Dr. Rao’s name is spelled as “Roa”, the email address used is not from VCU, instead is using a gmail account. Please be aware that any VCU business will be conducted with an vcu.edu email address.
VCU Information Security has already reported this email address as a known scammer address and have taken steps to prevent this scammer from contacting us.
Below is the email that was sent.
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From: Micheal Roa president020102@gmail.com
Date: Mon, Jun 24, 2019 at 8:14 PM
Subject:
To: victim@vcu.edu
Hello good morning,I am stuck in a seminar right now
please i need your assistance and i will appreciate your help a lot
Kindly drop your cellphone number to send text message.
Dr. Michael Rao
President
Virginia Commonwealth University