American students warn of a new scheme of fraud

Фото: Depositphotos

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns college and university students across the country about a credit card fraud scheme in which they allegedly help their prospective colleagues buy high-tech electronics in stores on campus.

In the spring of 2017, a number of universities reported that their stores lost thousands of dollars on purchases that were made using fake credit cards, the site says FBI.

In each of these cases, the fraudsters acted according to one pattern: the criminals stated that they had lost their student IDs and asked the students in the shop to vouch for them in the shop, using their student IDs. Then the scammers made purchases of predominantly expensive electronics using a fake credit card that corresponded to the data on their fake IDs, but the purchase with a fake card was registered in the name of the real student who agreed to help.

Campus stores are the objects of this scheme, because they usually offer special discounts for students who most likely do not see anything wrong with helping a stranger who presents himself as a student at the same educational institution.

In June, the FBI issued a warning about the scheme, giving advice on how to protect against fraud:

• For students - do not agree to a request to help make a purchase for those who do not have a student ID;
• For school administrators, prohibit campus store customers from making purchases using someone else's student ID.
• For victims, please notify campus security personnel.

The FBI’s June statement said that schools began reporting fraud in April 2016 of the year, notifying them of the loss of several thousand dollars in each case.

This was not the first warning for students that they might be victims of fraud. In May, the FBI warned students about the “education tax” scam when criminals called students, posing as IRS or FBI agents and demanding the immediate payment of this tax, threatening students with arrest.

Another fraud is the calling of criminals to parents of students with a statement that their children have been abducted, and for their release parents must pay a ransom. In most cases, students at the time of calls fraudsters are in the classroom and can not answer the phone calls from parents, which contributes to the likelihood of fraud.

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