Students responding to a message sent to their ISU e-mail account could threaten their financial security.

The message, which appears to originate from PayPal, an online payment system, solicits users to follow links within the message to verify account information.

Responding to or following the links in the message could compromise the security of the account holder.

Bob Anders, branch manager at US Bank, 2546 Lincoln Way, said his office closed more than a dozen student bank accounts in the past week.

“It is critical students do not answer this [e-mail], regardless of who they bank through,” he said.

Anders said he has seen only a handful of “phishing” scams, in which a party sends unsolicited e-mails requesting personal information.

He said although no patrons have lost money as a result of this scam, his bank branch has had to close an “unprecedented” number of accounts resulting from this scam.

“When someone solicits you, never respond to it,” Anders said. “Never ever, ever, ever respond to giving financial or personal information to a group that solicited you by e-mail.”

According to the ISU Information Technology Web site, 40 to 60 percent of the e-mail received by university accounts qualifies as spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail messages.

To limit the amount of spam received into a university e-mail account, Information Technology recommends users set up filters to block potential spam messages.

Instructions on how reduce spam sent to a university e-mail account are available at www.it.iastate.edu/spam.