One-third of IU Police Department’s active cases are frauds or scams, Capt. Craig Munroe said, and scammers are finding their victims through student emails, which are public information.
Students have been getting messages sent to their University emails offering part-time job opportunities, but the offers are often fraudulent, officer Derek Line said. The fraudulent business will ask for personal and banking information, send a letter offering employment and then send a fake check through FedEx or email asking the student to cash it quickly.
“If they’re trying to speed you up, they’re trying to get you off balance,” Munroe said.
From 2015-2017, IUPD handled 189 fraud cases, and so far have dealt with 47 fraud reports in 2018. Police are still working on limiting the amount of scam victims on campus.
In one reported case, a student was repeatedly told to leave class early to go to the bank and cash the check, Line said.
New student employees get assigned a supervisor, or another phone number that will supply more information. Once a student is contacted by the supervisor over text, all other communication is cut off, Lt. Kevin Lauerman said.
“They won’t call you or email you back, but they’ll text you,” Line said.
Once the check is cashed but before it has cleared, supervisors will rush the student to transfer over money into a banking account. The money is usually transferred over phone apps such as Venmo and CashApp, police said. The checks then bounce for being fraudulent, and the student has lost hundreds of dollars.
“If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” Lauerman said.
Sometimes, after students realize the check was fake, the supervisor will pull another scam. They will say they feel bad for the check, and will tell the student to go buy gift cards for Amazon or Visa and send pictures of the card number. Supervisors say that they will preload the cards with cash for the student, but then end up just using the cards, Line said.
One way to identify a scam email is to check if it was sent to multiple people.
“I’ve actually had them sent to my own email, along with a bunch of other people named Derek Line,” Line said.
If the email is sent in alphabetical order, like Line’s, it is obvious to spot the systematic scam, Munroe said.
“People need to think, ‘Why would they be contacting me?’” Munroe said.
The emails are often riddled with spelling and grammatical errors too, Line said. Other red flags include the company asking to reply on a personal email or refusing to speak in a formal setting.
“If you can’t talk to someone on the phone or in person, it’s probably a scam,” Lauerman said.
Students are often the target of these scams because they are looking for money and are sometimes naive and easy to catch off guard, police said.
“They’re targeting students because they’re vulnerable,” Lauerman said.
