CLARION, PA., Feb. 18 – Possible e-mail scams are finding their way into student accounts.

Many Clarion University students have been receiving e-mails asking them for personal information such as student e-mail addresses and login information for student accounts.

Sam Puleio of computing services, cautioned students in an e-mail that they should never send their personal information via e-mail.

Puleio said that there can be a variety of ways to try to scam e-mail recipients. The bottom line is that students are asked to send in personal information, or something will happen.

Puleio said the spam filters for the university are attempting to find and block any such “phishing” attempts.

However, the constantly changing forms of phishing make it difficult to keep up with the different variations on password scams.

Puleio also said that this is not exclusive to the university; this kind of thing can happen to anyone.

“This can happen with checking, banking, whatever. People will pose as IRS, credit card companies, even as long-lost relatives in need to scam people,” he said.

To those students wondering about the recent e-mails from the Clarion One-Stop. “There are no charges sent out online; we don’t do that,” said floor manager Mary Ann Graybill.

Puleio said, “We haven’t seen an example of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

One senior history major at Clarion, Sean Lotarski, has been the target of an Internet scam. Lotarski said, “I almost sent my stuff in.”

However, at the last minute, he said he realized the Web site was not legitimate in nature.  “It looked legit, but after filling out the information, I realized that this wasn’t the real deal.”

He immediately requested that his credit card company monitor his account for fraudulent spending.

Another student, Molly Brady, a sophomore secondary education major, also received a phishing attempt disguised as an e-mail from the university.

She said, “I just deleted it.  I figured if it was important, they’d just send it again.”

Some students do send in their information, however.  In the case of passwords, Puleio said, all students need to do is reset their password. “

Typically, they’re just trying to jump onto an account to distribute spam messages.

Changing the password stops access to that.” Puleio advises students to be skeptical. “If in doubt, delete it.”

For more information on Internet scams, contact Computing Services on the Clarion Web site.