Scam Gallery

Spammers are becoming cleverer every day. In fact, spam and spam blockers are locked in something akin to an arms race: As spam becomes trickier, spam blockers find new ways to filter it out, and so on.

While Drexel University tags and filters out most spam messages sent to Drexel email accounts, occasionally new ones can show up in your inbox before our system catches up. Some messages, via devious means, might bypass Drexel's filters altogether. It's up to the user - you - to learn to recognize email scams and know how to deal with them.

Below, you will find links to real examples of spam messages, screenshots of how they actually appear in your inbox, and tips for recognizing spam and other phishing scams.

NOTE: As new scams appear, IRT will update these pages as necessary. This is by no means an exhaustive list--there are many more scams than those that appear here.

Table of Contents

Email Support/Account Verification, Maintenance, or Upgrade Scams
"Your Order from [company name] Has Shipped!" Scams
"I'm Stuck in [foreign country]" Scams
Nigerian (and Not-So-Nigerian) Fund Transfer Scams
Governmental or "Official" Scam Emails
"Mystery Shopper" Scams
"Winner!" Scams

For general phishing/virus prevention tips, see Protect Yourself Against Spam on IRT's Web site.