John Strickland, who will remain anonymous in this story, did not recognize himself. He looked up at the mirrors that line the walls of the Walgreens in Charleston, his eyes sunken in, his confidence shattered.

Strickland had just shipped his 800th dollar, through the use of a Western Union kiosk, to an unknown source in the Ivory Coast.

Surveying the store, he searched for help.

“I am being blackmailed, and I don’t know how to say ‘no,’” Strickland told a cashier, who then called the police.

Unfortunately, however, there was nothing they could do, nothing they could do to get back the 800 dollars, nothing they could do to ease his pain.

Instead they told him to shut down his Facebook and Instagram accounts, severing the ties to a source that, for all he knows, could have been anyone.

He became acquainted with the source on Facebook and began exchanging messages after receiving a friend request from someone who claimed to be new to the social networking site.

From there, Strickland accepted the friend request, enamored with the profile picture of a woman who appeared to be in her late 20s, early 30s.

As the conversations ensued, the “friend” informed Strickland that they uncovered an embarrassing picture and, unless he sent money, would send it off to members of Strickland’s family as well as post it on his high school website.

“What’s great about humans is we have free will,” Strickland said. “And I still had free will in class, I still had free will when I was eating with friends, but all the other times it was taken away from me and I was being controlled by someone.”

The friend had hacked into Strickland’s phone, obtaining a picture that would generate some unsavory conversations with his parents and grandparents, even though they knew he had a girlfriend at the time.

“It was out of fear because if that thing went around, it would not have been good for the family,” Strickland said. “And, honestly, I really don’t care; I feel like I could have explained it, but it would just look bad for my parents.”

When Strickland hesitated, not knowing how to respond to what he described as a hostage situation, the “friend” would tell him that they were growing impatient, demanding he get to Walgreens in five minutes or else the picture would be posted.

His friend assured him, suggesting the money could abate the costs of her child’s cancer treatments.

“I was really pissed off at the time because I am like an Ebenezer Scrooge,” Strickland said. “If it actually did help a kid that had cancer, I guess all’s well that ends well. They never asked for more money, so I hope it helps.”

Junior Kieran Cook, who has maintained a 4.0 grade point average, thought he had been inducted into an honor society upon viewing an email in his Panthermail inbox.

Cook’s elation swelled at the idea of joining a prestigious organization, that is, until a few friends mentioned in a group chat that they, too, received the email in their inbox.

“If you are being scammed face to face, it’s easier to realize that you are being scammed because it could be the way that somebody approaches you or how they carry themselves when they explain something to you; you can kind of read that,” Cook said.

“When it’s on paper or on a screen, you can’t really—you can’t look at body language to tell whether or not you are being scammed, so it’s a lot harder.”

In the past few weeks, Eastern’s Information Technology Services has unearthed a string of phishing attacks, where the author of the email claims to possess a video that could tarnish the reputation of the receiver, or the Eastern student, if they do not send money via Twitter. People who breed such scams, IT technical associate Aaron Allison said, frequently locate these email addresses through lists posted online.

“Phishing is just a social engineered attack that a scammer will try to mimic someone else. That way they get them to, one, send information that they shouldn’t, two, trick them into log in somewhere,” Allison said. “Once they are logged in, they can use those credentials and focus the attack on the same campus.”

Phishing emails, often containing a series of misspelled words, tend to elicit a sense of urgency, exhorting students to take action as soon as possible. The university will never ask for a student’s username or password information. Students, Allison said, can hover their keyboard mouse over the link to determine whether the website matches the domain that sent the email.

He would advise students to change their password, to avoid downloading unexpected attachments and follow up with a phone call to the sender, thus enabling them to confirm whatever it is that they are requesting.

Several detectives and officers at the Charleston Police Department have been armed with the skills to uncover online threats.

They recently responded to an elderly resident who provided several thousand dollars to an individual claiming to be a loved one, which turned out to be nothing more than an elaborate ruse. The department tracked down the scam artist, though the individual, it so happened, was from out of state. But, even in such instances, they can contact the FBI and other federal law enforcement officials. Lieutenant William Lawler from CPD stated that officers have gathered more training, both on the state and federal levels, and access to law enforcement programs. These programs can accurately track phone numbers, something they once needed to outsource.

“If it’s too good to be true, obviously, it probably is,” Lawler said.

Tom O’Connor can be reached at 581-2812 or troconnor@eiu.edu.