Email Tax Scams Alert

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Although it is early, the Offices of Information Technology (OIT) and Human Resources (HR) want to raise awareness among faculty, staff, and student employees about the potential for email tax scams.

As we move into tax season, you may start receiving emails claiming to be from SIU Carbondale HR, the State of Illinois, your department, or even the IRS. Be very skeptical if you receive this type of correspondence by email—and equally cautious when dealing with it.

You should first know that SIU Carbondale, the State of Illinois, and the Internal Revenue Service will never send you an email requesting your personal information. Typical red flags for scam email are that it is an unexpected email; you don’t recognize the sender or the sender’s address looks suspicious; the email urges you to respond or act quickly; you are not addressed by name; the email contains no contact information; the email contains typos or oddly worded sentences; or the email asks you to click on a link or copy and paste an address into the address bar. Be wise and be safe—do not respond and delete the email.

To keep the campus community informed, OIT Security maintains a list of known scams; however, the list is not a complete list of all scams that may be circulating. If you are in doubt, send questionable emails to OIT Security at scams@siu.edu

For questions that pertain to SIU Carbondale employment or payroll issues and W-2s form you can contact the Human Resource-Payroll Office at (618) 536-3369, visit the Human Resources website, or access the Human Resources Self Service system online.

~A Message from Information Technology and Human Resources