Student Employment Scam

The high cost of higher education just got even worse if you fall for this scam.

Who Is It Targeting: College students and young adults

What Is It: An employment scam

What Are They After: It can be tough to pay for college, and finding employment that pays enough while working around a student’s busy schedule is just as hard. It’s no wonder that otherwise smart kids would fall for an employment scam that seems too good to be true.

In this apparent money laundering scam, the new employee is sent checks to deposit into his bank account, with instructions to withdraw a certain amount and send it on to someone else. In order to appear genuine, the first check or two might actually work. But sooner rather than later, the first counterfeit check appears. The employee deposits it, withdraws the indicated amount, and sends it off as usual, only to have the bank discover the check is a fake. By then, the student’s withdrawal is gone, and he ends up owing the bank the money. If he’s lucky, that’s all that will happen to him, but he could face having his account closed for fraud and criminal charges for his participation in this scheme.

Just to make this scam even worse, when the student applied for the job, he turned over all of his sensitive personal information and may now face identity theft.

How Can You Avoid It:

• As much as it hurts to say it, there’s no such thing as a “money for nothing” job.
• College students are high targets for scammers, so it’s important to check out everything before signing up or turning over your information.

For full details of this scam check out this article from FBI.gov.