After last year’s Social Security snafu and the weekend’s ID mixup, it’s safe to say that Columbia’s tech people can sometimes mess up. We weren’t automatically skeptical, then, when several Bwog staffers received an e-mail from a Columbia e-mail address with the subject line: “Please Update your COLUMBIA E-mail Account.” Then we noticed that the e-mail asked for our passwords and dates of birth.

Sadly, the efforts to disguise the spam fell flat beyond the subject line—Bwog thinks it has something to do with the return address being in the Netherlands. There were other subtle hints as well, such as the continued capitalization of “COLUMBIA,” the mention of a “COLUMBIA Support Desk – Information Technology” department, and the threat that “Account owner that refuse to send this information after One weeks of receiving this warning will lose his/her COLUMBIA Web-mail account permanently.” Somehow, we doubts that CUIT would does anythings so drastic.

As for the Columbia address, a quick directory search revealed it belongs to an associate professor in the Department of Child Psychiatry. The lesson here is clear: don’t trust Nigerian princes, overseas lotteries, and now, child psychiatrists. Full e-mail for your amusement after the jump.

-JCD & JYH

Please Update your COLUMBIA E-mail Account

Dear COLUMBIA Web-Mail User

We wish to inform you that we are undergoing slight maintenance and upgrading of our site also we are having congestion’s due to the anonymous registration of accounts. And we are also using this medium in shutting down  some accounts and your account was among those to be shut down

We are sending you this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account details below.and you are required to send your account details for verification:

E-mail Address:_____________

Password:________________

Date Of Birth(DOB):___________

DISCLAIMER!!! Account owner that refuse to send this information after One weeks of receiving this warning will lose his/her  COLUMBIA Web-mail account permanently.

Warning!!! it very important you update your email account within One Weeks of this update notification,We are sorry for any inconvenience will might have cause you, and expect our new mail features.

COLUMBIA Support Desk

Information Technology