Evan Recovery Campaign is a SCAM!
This morning we were alerted by several in the ASMS community to an email which included the ASMS logo and solicited donations for the 'Evan Recovery Campaign.' This is a scam! Please treat as junk mail. The sender (asms@goisd.com) is NOT from the ASMS office.
This is a new low, in our opinion, and we will treat in the same manner we do with other scams brought to our attention. We send a cease and desist letter. We have been advised by our attorney that this is the best action we can take. This along with alerting the community to be vigilant.
Steps you can take to avoid falling prey to email scams.
- Pay attention to sender information. ASMS only uses info@asms.org to send official communications from the ASMS office. If you see an address other than info@asms.org (for example the fraudulent, asms@goisd.com) you can confidently treat as spam/junk.
- If in doubt, contact us at the ASMS office at info@asms.org or +1-505-989-4517.
ASMS does not share, sell, or provide email list of members or other ASMS.org users to third-parties. Exception to this is the JASMS subscription list for the purpose of monthly e-Alerts regarding monthly publication of JASMS. There is a strict agreement and protocol in place to protect this information and its use by JASMS publisher.
We believe that these email scams generate from bad actors that may harvest information from social media sites or other nefarious methods.
We apologize for the inconvenience and alarm email scams may cause our community. Please help us in being vigilant to protect yourself from email scams by following the steps above.
Beware of fraudulent list services!
The most common type of scam we have seen, prior to this morning, are from data services (personal data information sellers) hawking conference attendance lists. Corporate member companies receive these scam solicitations on a regular basis. These solicitations are 100% fraudulent. ASMS conference attendee lists are NOT available through any third party list service. Any solicitation of ASMS contact lists, for example 2020 ASMS Annual Conference is NOT legitimate. These list solicitation scams primarily target Corporate Member companies, but individuals may also receive fraudulent list solictations as well. ASMS recommends that you treat any contact list solicitation as spam/junk mail.
Beware of housing service scams!
Growing in popularity is the housing service scam. Again, these typically target ASMS Corporate member companies because a list of these companies is available on our website. Another target for these scams are invited speakers for a particular conference as these individuals may be listed on an organization's website. Fortunately the main ASMS annual conference has very few invited speakers. Please be aware of this type of scam for other conferences you may be involved with. We can think of no organization that actively solicits speakers or attendees to reserve their hotel rooms. Again, if there is ever a doubt, we encourage you to contact conference organizers and only reserve your room through known channels which are very typically a particular conference's website.