Scammers Target SMMUSD Staff, District Says

MALIBU, CA — If your boss emails, you need to answer, right?

You probably should if it’s actually your boss who’s emailing. On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of staff of the Santa Monica-Malibu United School District received a scam email claiming to be from Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati that asked for their cell phone numbers.

An email from “superintedent232@criptext.com” (which is not Drati's address) sent at 4:14 on Tuesday read: “Send me your personal cell number i need you to take care of something.”

District spokesperson Gail Pinsker said that two people responded to the email with their cell numbers, and received a text from a 404 area code asking recipients to purchase gift cards and text back a code. “This is Dr. Ben Drati. Let me know if you got my text,” the text began, to which the recipient replied, “Hi, shall I call you?”

"Where are you presently because I need you to complete a task for me right away,” the text continued. “I’m tied up at the conference right now can’t talk on the phone. I need you to get me some gift card, can you confirm if you can get an eBay gift card from the nearest store close to you.”

The two text recipients grew suspicious and instead texted Pinsker, who sent out a series of emails roughly 40 minutes after the initial email was sent warning staff that it was a scam and to not respond. Pinsker then notified the IT department, who blocked access from the encrypted email address.

Pinsker also notified the Santa Monica Police Department, who as of early Wednesday have not returned her calls. The SMPD have also not yet responded to calls or emails from Patch.

This is the second time in two weeks that unwanted emails have been sent to SMMUSD students and staff. On May 1 around midnight, a student sent messages to the student body for 16 minutes before the district technology team intercepted and briefly suspended the school email. Pinsker says that the two incidents are unrelated.