Occasionally you may receive an email that claims to have been sent by us or from a department within UCL asking for information on your account.

Any email that asks you for your username, real name, date of birth, course studied, years of study, security question/answer and most importantly your password IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE FAKE.

Nothing happens such as 'deleting unused webmail accounts to create space for new ones', 'performing maintenance on the webmail server' (that requires your account information) nor do we require your account details to unlock your account if/when you go overquota. These are all common reasons given by phishing scams designed to trick you into handing over your account details.

Regardless of the reason, we will never ask you for your details as we have that information already when you registered with the service. Why would we need to ask you for it again?

Emails we send to you will address you by name, not 'UCL User' or 'Webmail User' and will be signed Aluminati (http://www.uclmail.net service providers), not 'Webmail Team' or by the University College London IT department.

Remember: Even if the email is addressed properly, has the service logo on the HTML version of the email and is appropriately signed by an Aluminati department - if it asks you for your account details it is still always going to be fake.

If you get one of these emails please forward it to help@uclmail.net or by using the contact form here on http://www.uclmail.net and then delete the email yourself. We can then block further instances arriving and put a stop on any replies being sent to the phisher from webmail to prevent fellow members from accidentally replying.

Never reply to any of these emails, even to give them fake account details. Doing so confirms that your email account is active and being read. All you'll achieve is more spam being sent to you!