Warning issued about scam email targeting students

The Warwick Students’ Union (SU) and Warwickshire Police have issued a warning about a scam email circulating UK universities.

The email claims that the recipient was awarded a £1,750 grant by the Department of Education, and asks students to follow a link in the email and subsequently to provide their bank details.

It appears to be sent by the university finance department and urges students to submit their data quickly to avoid delays in grant payments.

So far, the email was received by students at Cardiff University and the University of Hertfordshire, but Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre, warned that the emails can be “easily adapted to target other regions too.”

It appears that such emails have been circulating last year as well, but the earliest one recorded in this case was September 21.

Various other instances of such scams have been recorded in past years. The BBC reports that in 2016 a student at Queen Mary University London lost £300 after she followed the instructions in a fraudulent email and in the same year, students at the University of Glasgow were also targeted by a scam email.

At the time, the Student Loans Company said students were especially vulnerable to “phishing” attempts around September, January and April, which are the main payment dates for student grants.

Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails pretending to be from well-known companies or institutions, with the purpose of obtaining personal information such as bank details.

All of the universities at which students have received such emails issued statements saying that they would never ask for students’ bank details in this way.