Email Scam (Fraudulent FBI Rep)
A new scam is active that involves a letter which appears to come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security regarding an immigration clearance certificate.
The emails list the contact person as the Reverend Frank Tim Kelly, or sometimes just Reverend Frank Kelly. The email is an attempt to gain your name, address and telephone number along with a fee of $350. There is a warning that legal action will commence if the recipient of the letter does not respond within 48 hours.
Corporate Security has confirmed that these emails are fraudulent and nothing more than a financial scam intended to defraud recipients and possibly expose them to additional identity theft. You are urged to delete these emails upon receipt.
Red flags evident in these cases
· The FBI is not involved with immigration-related matters.
· The federal government sends its official communications via the United States mail and not through unsolicited emails.
· Recipients of these letters are almost always United States citizens without immigration issues.
· The contact person identifies himself as legal counsel to the government but uses ‘Reverend’ in his official title.
· There are grammatical errors throughout the document: punctuation, improper capitalization of words and improper verb tense.
· There is no contact telephone number.
· The sender uses a personal email address rather than a government email address as a contact point.
· The sender indicates that the International Court of Justice will file legal action even though this purports to be a document from the United States federal government.
More information on this scam can be found at the following sites online
FBI Warning
This Security Information Bulletin can also be accessed by Johns Hopkins employees with JHM Intranet access on Corporate Security’s internal website.
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