The most ridiculous probably non-spam email I've ever received

I received an email yesterday in my old UBC account that I don't really use anymore. The email came from a guy named Kallum at a University of Guelph email address. Here's what the email said:

Good Day Ms. Kidd,

I've been trying to find a research article for a friend but have so far been unsuccessful at my university and others. Access to the journal Nature Clinical Practice Urology seems to be very elusive, but the UBC library appears to have it. I was wondering if you've some spare time and are willing, if you could please download the pdf file of the article and email to me.

Library link: http://gw2jh3xr2c.search.serialssolutions.com/?V=1.0&L=GW2JH3XR2 C&S=AC_T_B&C=Nature+Clinical+Practice+Urology

Journal Name: Nature Clinical Practice Urology
Volume: 2
Issue: 1
First Page: 38

Thank you for your time and have a Great Day.
Kallum

This was followed 5 minutes later by another email from the same guy:

Hello again Ms. Kidd,

Forgot to put the year of that article on which is 2005.

cheers
Kallum

Now, I am perhaps a little on the gullible side on occasions, and have a tendency to believe things that my friends tell me - failing to understand why they would intentionally tell me a lie (but that's another story). However, I also consider myself reasonably savvy when it comes to recognizing an email scam (after some coaching from Bryan and other geek friends). For example when I received an email this morning from TD Canada Trust asking me to click on a link and verify my banking details, I gave it no more thought as I sent it to the trash. And I almost never reply to Nigerian bank managers requesting permission to store millions of dollars in my bank account.

But for some reason the email from Kallum seemed vaguely legit - perhaps it was the follow up email that made me think it was above board (because email scams would never involve a follow up email, right?). Or maybe it was the fact that he talked about universities and journal articles (academics are never involved in email scams, right?). So then with little further thought, I STUPIDLY clicked on the link on the first email, just to see what kind of article he was trying to get hold of. Not 10 nanoseconds after I clicked the link I regretted it and tried to close down my browser before it could open the link. Luckily I was saved by my browser requiring a password (I was at work), so I hit cancel and the link couldn't open.

I talked about it with Bryan last night and we both agreed that it was highly suspicious email and I should never click on links in highly suspicious emails. But I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't a scam, but just a really stupid email from a really stupid person. So this morning I forwarded the emails to Bryan to see what he thought of them. At the same time I googled some keywords from the link, the journal name, Kallum's full name, email address etc. It didn't turn up anything that indicated it was a scam. In fact it appeared Kallum was a grad student from Lakehead University (never heard of it!), despite using a UGuelph email address. It all looked pretty legit, and Bryan agreed that it did appear to be legit, but seriously misguided.

It's not uncommon for me to receive an email from someone looking for a copy of an article that I have written, but this article has absolutely nothing to do with me, and isn't even in my research area. I don't understand how or why he would randomly email someone at a UBC email address to ask them to send him an article from the UBC library. And why did he have to randomly email someone on behalf of a friend? Maybe his friend thought that randomly emailing people was a dumb idea, in which case Kallum should have listened. Hasn't he ever heard of interlibrary loans or document delivery? And how could he assume that I was "Ms. Kidd" rather than Dr. Kidd? I could have been the V-P for all he knew! (Although I admit I am sensitive about that, having had a major Vancouver news station discuss my research and refer to me only as "Sarah"). Why did Kallum think that a total stranger would feel like clicking on the link in his email and then go to the trouble of finding a journal article and sending it to him. What kind of person would click on a link in a strange email ?! *Ahem*

Now if anyone who is more scam-savvy than me can tell me anything about this then I'm all ears. Is it a scam that I almost fell for, or just some stupid grad student?



P.S. Blair, can you see how this post has nothing at all to do with weddings? See I can talk about other things sometimes.