Students fall victim to job board scams
Students are falling for money-forwarding scams from false advertisements on the USU Job Board, KSL Classifieds and other sources, according to Capt. Steve Milne of the USU Police Department.
“If you start getting anything where a check is sent to you and you are asked to take some money out and forward it on, walk away, because you’re being scammed,” Milne said.
The USU Police Department has received tips from students over the past year about suspicious job postings, Milne said. The postings change in type as they get reported but the basic idea remains the same, he said.
The scam attempt starts with a cover story. One job posting on the USU Job Board was from a person who claimed to live out of state who wanted to open a restaurant in Logan and needed an assistant living in the valley to do preliminary research, Milne said.
Another advertisement wanted to hire a mystery shopper. The original post was from a supposed parent of a disabled child looking for a caregiver, Milne said. A student responded to the advertisement and received a check in the mail for a large amount of money.
“It’s packaged a whole bunch of different ways, but the common theme is you get this check,” Milne said.
The student was instructed to cash the check and take a portion for a salary advance. The rest was to be forwarded to another address, Milne said. A few days later the check bounced, and the financial institution it was cashed at demanded the money back from the student.
Zions Bank teller Disney Peterson deals with students who cash the faulty checks. She said often a student does not have enough money in their account to pay for a bounced check worth several thousand dollars.
“If we can’t get the money back, their account gets charged,” she said.
Peterson said a charge against an account can damage credit scores in addition to being costly.
Just because the check was cashed does not mean it is not a scam, Peterson said. Checks may take a day or two to bounce because the money does not transfer automatically from the check holder’s account.
The tellers at Peterson’s branch in the Taggart Student Center watch for red flags when cashing checks, but ultimately it is up to the person cashing the check to decide what to do with it. The checks are very authentic looking, so the amount usually draws suspicion, she said.
“If it’s a certain amount of money, we’ll ask questions about it,” Peterson said.
By the time a check bounces, the money is usually out of the country and very difficult for the police department to track, Milne said. The best thing to do when a student finds out they have been scammed is tell the police, he said.
Milne said a good way to avoid a money forwarding scam is to use common sense. It is unlikely an employer – or anyone conducting a business transaction – will overwrite a check.
“You don’t pay your bills like that,” Milne said. “You pay them individually. You don’t send a check to the electric company for the power bill and say, ‘Forward some on for my student loans.'”
However, students should not be afraid to answer postings on the job board or other places, Milne said. He added the USU Police work with Career Services to ensure phony job postings are taken off the job board.
“There are legitimate businesses,” he said. “People sell things all the time on the job board and everything goes fine.”
Paula Johnson, a student employment specialist with Career Services, said companies around Cache Valley have posted on the job board for years, so for the most part the board is still a reliable place to search for employment. Career Services screens the postings more thoroughly now and fewer phony job offers get on the Web, she said.
Students should be wary of phone numbers and addresses that are not local, she said. Many phony employers communicate only through email and offer suspiciously high salaries.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it could be,” Johnson said.
– la.stewart@aggiemail.usu.edu