Scammers know that college students--who are often young and strapped for cash--tend to be good targets for their scams offering easy money. Protect yourself by learning how to sniff out a clever scam.
A new scam every day
Scammers constantly change their approach. Once people get wise to their 鈥渨ork from home鈥� scam, it鈥檚 time to switch it up and impersonate a tax office, telling people that they owe back taxes and will be arrested if they don鈥檛 pay up on the spot. This rapidly changing landscape makes it hard for universities to keep their students and employees informed and up-to-date. The best defense is therefore sound judgement and the willingness to do your own research rather than trust a stranger at their word.
Anyone can find public information about you
A person calls you on the phone, and he knows things about you. Maybe he knows which state you file your taxes in, what your birthdate is or where you live. This can make it seem like maybe you听蝉丑辞耻濒诲听trust to this person. 鈥淥nly a legit business would听know things about me,鈥澨�you think.听Not so fast.
All of these types of information are publicly available to anyone with access to a computer. Furthermore, you share all sorts of personal information about yourself on social media which may offer clues as to what types of tricks a scammer should use. Scammers commonly conduct research before they call people, increasing their likelihood of getting what they want from you.
But they LOOK official
It isn鈥檛 difficult to impersonate a university or even a tax office. Just because the message has an official email header doesn鈥檛 mean that it is coming from who you think it is.* And you听听别颈迟丑别谤.
Earn big money working from home
Scams like this continue to be the most successful at swindling people out of thousands of dollars. CU-Boulder police have听听in the past.
It鈥檚 really quite simple
- Don鈥檛 give out personal information in response to an incoming call.听If someone calls you and claims to be a representative from a bank, credit card company or government agency, do not give them your account numbers, Social Security number, mother鈥檚 maiden name, password or other identifying information.
- If you do get a call like this, and you don鈥檛 think you should ignore it,听hang up, look up a phone number yourself, and call that phone number.听Look to your account statement or on the company鈥檚 or government agency鈥檚 website to find out if the entity that supposedly called you actually needs the requested information from you.
- Let the Federal COmmunications Commission (FCC) know about ID spoofers by calling 1-888-CALL-FCC or filing a complaint at听.
Above all else, just use this simple mantra to help you sniff out scams: 鈥淚f it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.鈥� Then do your own research.
听
*Currently, University of Colorado emails such as Administrative E-Memo, system informational emails and CU-Boulder Today are being routed through a platform which uses this domain for links:听.听We want you to be aware that this is a secured CU service.