I’m sorry your daughter had this bad experience but learning at a young age that anyone can get scammed is actually a valuable life lesson. I used to think “this won’t happen to me” (or anyone I know). Well, in the past few years, I’ve had to cancel a credit card because the number was stolen (and used to attempt to buy things in Paris!), and my daughter had to cancel her debit card because an ATM in Vietnam was hacked and amounts were siphoned from her bank account. And recently, we found out that my husband is one of hundreds of thousands of current and former federal employees whose personal identifying information was stolen.
Glad you/she caught it and didn’t lose any money. There have been many iterations of this scam, but the constant is the “overpayment” and the request to “pay yourself out of it” and send the rest back. I have a friend who was contacted by a supposed British student who was reportedly going to study in our city and was responding to an ad to rent a room in her house. Same scam-- overpaid by bank check and asked for a refund. My friend almost fell for it.
@N’sMom…this student went through their university career website. One would think that is reputable. Unfortunately, it sounds like that website was hacked.
OP-
Let us know what the school finds out about how this got posted on their site. Maybe some poor website support person was scammed too!
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There are a great many scams out there aimed at college students because they are inexperienced. D rented an apartment on Craig’s list for the summer. She knew the building well and the pictures on the website looked like apts. in that building. She received, signed and returned the lease and transferred the payment. Never heard from the ‘renter’ again. Her money was gone - so was the bank account to which she had transferred the funds. The apartment existed but belonged to someone else who was apparently unaware of the scheme. The scammer had just helped themselves to pictures of a unit in the building that must have been posted somewhere at some time. Craig List has no responsibility, of course, and the police couldn’t do anything. The only clues were that the rent was better than anything else she’d seen for comparable apartments and she never spoke to the renter - it was all done by email).
Next time, she’ll either go through a reputable intermediary or visit the place in person and get a copy of the key when she makes the payment.
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I dislike Craigs List immensely for these scams that seem to keep going and going.
Twice last fall I got phone calls from people suckered thru CL. Some scammer from god-knows-where, using the name Yves Baptiste, had used some pics of my rentals and created CL ads. He collected money from these people (they paid thru PayPal) and left them high and dry. Communications had been only thru emails and texts…with the texts ending minutes before their scheduled arrivals. Luckily, in both cases, PayPal did return their money, and the scammer was linked to San Francisco, England and Morrocco.
Of course, the victims and I reported these scam-ads to CL and it took awhile for them to disappear. In the meantime, I had to create “ads” myself in CL specifically calling this scammer out…as a way to warn innocents.
It was horrifying for these desperate people, thinking that they were arriving to a rental, only to have to tell them that they had been scammed.
I’m showing this thread to my daughters.
FYI: The job position was advertised as “assistant” with minimal information provided to the university. The job information is provided after several email and text communications.
I provided all of that to the banking officials. Follow up is tomorrow from their main offices.
Thanks to everyone! This has all been very eye-opening, yet helpful.
It would have been interesting to cash the check at a check cashing outlet and then wait to see what happens.
Yup. I’ve gotten this one - in my case, it was a woman claiming to be from Switzerland who wanted me to tutor her son during his summer in the states. We actually exchanged a couple of substantial e-mails before she asked to pay me way more than the agreed-upon amount for the tutoring sessions, deposit it in my account and forward the rest to her “travel agent.” in the US. She also threw in a couple of sob stories about family emergencies to justify the payment scheme.
I also thought the motive might be money laundering and called the police, but they confirmed that it is a pretty cut and dried scam - they’re hoping that by the time the bank catches on to the fraud, you’ll have sent your actual money their way. The cops took down the e-mail address, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t planning on following up.
Teach your kids: ** If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
Last fall I started a thread on identity theft. My husband got a call from a great-grandmother in South Carolina who had been corresponding with a soldier who was supposedly stationed overseas someplace. He sent her a check which she was supposed to deposit and then somehow send him the money after taking out some for herself. Instead, she took the time to track down my husband whose name and address were on the check. We discovered that someone had used his personal information to order new checks. This was a pretty elaborate scheme; she said that she had been writing to this young man for 3 months. Senior citizens also are frequent targets of scammers.
I hope that the University (with some prompting from you) sends out an email to each student warning them of this scam.
This scam goes on in many sites. My D got something similar from care.com when she was looking for a babysitting job. After some research we found that the person went under various names. The person actually threathened my D with their “lawyer” if she did not abide by their instructions. At this point DH got involved and it was game on. We know who you are and we will call the authorities if you don’t back off. At that point, they did. D reported the incident to care but who knows if they actually follow up or can control it. If it is too good to be true, beware. Lesson learned. it is a shame this goes on with kids looking for some jobs in this market.
My Mom was being scammed a few years ago and we reported it to the USPS. I had to give the scammers kudos for organization - they were sending her ten different types of letters that looked like they were from different people, but all had post office boxes in the same center. I know people say they don’t do anything, but when we reported it it stopped instantly. Never received a single thing again from that scammer.
The common theme is a fake certified check. People think a certified check is as good as cash. They also think that if their bank accepts the check and gives them full availability it must be ok. They don’t realize that it can take a week for their own bank to determine the cashiers check is fake, at which point the money comes out of your account. Meanwhile if you have sent money along via prepaid cards or wire transfer, that money is gone. Victims feel stupid and are often too embarrassed to report the crime. This obviously helps the scammers too. It is important to report these crimes, even if you fall for it. I can’t believe how many people still are not familiar with this scam. I recently saved a friend (an elderly woman) who was selling a large piece of furniture on Craigs List. An out of state buyer sent her a certified check for more than the purchase price and wanted her to forward the balance to his “shipping company.” I told her, “no way!”
The op’s scammer wanted them to deposit the check in the ATM. Another red flag as it takes longer to be identified as fake.
That also applies to Money Orders.
Essentially this is what is called “smurfing”. The term generates from money launderers way back before the age of electronic banking who would run around town (like little smurfs) with large sums of cash and convert it into multiple small money orders which would be then forwarded to whomever. I work in compliance for a major international bank and believe me when I tell you that all banks in the US are supposed to have safety nets in place to catch this type of activity. I myself have spoken to many a worried parent of a teenager who fell for this. Unfortunately, your daughter would have also been subject to investigation and reported to the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had you not found this. The bank would likely not have said anything to her that day (or they may have depending on how alert the teller was) but activity like this on any account would send up a red flag in their system and at some point there would have been action taken. There is no tolerance for those who claim ignorance and in actuality the checks sent to the individuals are most often fraudulent and eventually the bank would come after your daughter for the money. It is a huge awful mess for those who get involved in this. Thank goodness you were looking out for her.
Take the whole lot to your bank’s compliance officer and tell them you feel a SAR needs to be filed with the US Government in this case. Also, alert your postmaster and anyone else you feel necessary.
Thanks everyone! I think what’s important is that my dd knew something didnt feel “right” and she knew something was wrong. She started to investigate a little and when she finally told us, the evening she received the check, she realized someone was taking advantage of her.
If something doesn’t sound or feel right, tell someone.
The school is emailing all of the students who have accessed the career services web site. The job posting got through the filters, so the university is working on that.
The bank is supposed to contact us today.