D19 President Alert Letter for Scammers

Dear Division 19 Members,                                                            
 
As recent as today our board members have received scam emails with a request stating “The Society for Military Psychology, needs Gift cards for donation to Veterans Hospice care unit across the community.” As in this case, scammers send emails making it look like they are coming from the president of the division and ask the contact to help make a payment or purchasing gift cards on their behalf.
 
This scam has been targeted to many organizations and some have fallen prey. This is something that can be easily set up by pulling the names, positions, and emails from a division’s website. This doesn’t mean that such information should not be listed but rather serves to point out how such information may be found and used.
 
We ask everyone to be extra cautious in dealing with emails asking for payment and to watch out for “phishing” emails, defined on Wikipedia as “the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details (and money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”
 
Here are some tips:  

• Be cautious when you get urgent messages asking for a check or some type of payment as quickly as possible, especially during a hectic time such as a conference or end of the year.
• Hover over the “from” name in an email, and you may see an unfamiliar or questionable email address.
• Call the person to confirm the request.

 
Report scams to Kelly at  kweinberger.armyvet@gmail.com and Maggie at maggie.c.talbot@gmail.com
 
You can read an article about phishing (PDF, 330KB) and refer to an infographic on phishing for more information.


Respectfully,

Stephen
 
Stephen Bowles, Ph.D., ABPP
President, Society for Military Psychology