Beware of student football ticket scams

This message is intended for U-M IT leadership and the Security Community.

Help spread awareness of student ticket scams

ITS Information Assurance recently has seen an increase in the sophistication of student football ticket scams. Please be aware of these ongoing scams and share this information with your student population, student advisors, and faculty.

The scammers use GroupMe or other social media to offer U-M football tickets for sale. Then the scammers follow up by sending forged emails that appear to come from real students’ @umich.edu email addresses. The emails:

• Claim to prove the legitimacy of the ticket sellers.
• Ask the recipients to send payment through CashApp, Venmo, or other methods.
• Promise to transfer the tickets once payment is made.

Students should be suspicious of offers for football tickets and should send a new, separate email to the seller’s @umich.edu email address to verify their identity. If they reply to a message they received, the reply-to address will most likely be another email address and they may not notice if they are not paying attention.

• Refer to How to Spot a Spoof for tips on recognizing clues that indicate an email might be spoofed or forged.
• Students who have fallen victim to one of these scams, which resulted in loss of money, should contact the University of Michigan Police Department at 734-763-1131.