Urgent/emergency requests to purchase iTunes gift cards are fraudulent.

A number of attempts to convince faculty and staff to purchase iTunes gift cards have been circulating. These emails have some or all of the following attributes.

• They purport to be from deans, department heads, and even the college president.
• The email address is some form of the user’s actual email name at a domain other than “berry.edu”, Examples include “@my.com”,
• They will ask for varying amounts, ranging from $200 to $400, of iTunes gift cards (but potentially other gift cards) be purchased and images of the redemption codes be sent.
• The sender will always be “stuck in a meeting”, “unable to use their phone”, or other reasons why they need you to go do this “important” and “urgent” favor for them.
• The emails generally have poor grammar, misspellings, odd word choices and other clues that they are not legitimate.
• The opening email of the scam will generally be a simple question – “Are you available (no question mark)” and may have a subject indicating that this is a reply to a previous email or it is continuing a previous conversation – for example “Follow up”.

Please report these emails using the “Report Email as Phishing” button.