[MlMt] Flagging potentially fake email addresses

[Randall Gellens]

On 13 Feb 2019, at 13:46, Kee Hinckley wrote:

> The intro text was professionally done. It was specifically targeted 
> for a sociology department. Followup text was sloppier and clearly 
> done on the fly. She managed to alert other students and stopped at 
> least one person who was just about to buy the cards. The scam works 
> very well.

I'm continually surprised how gullible people are.  Why would someone's 
department chair or other boss send email from a meeting asking the 
person to purchase gift cards?  I know there's always a rationale in the 
email ("I'm stuck in this meeting, I need to pay my baby sitter, won't 
have time later, etc.") but it's never seemed remotely plausible to me.  
I know people fall for the tax scams, where they get a call from someone 
claiming to be from the U.S. tax collection agency (or national police 
or something) and pressuring the person to buy gift cards to pay a tax 
lien or warrant for arrest or something, and that has always seemed so 
wildly ridiculous that I'm always amazed people fall for it.

--Randall