How to Spot, Avoid and Report Fake Check Scams

The UMBC community has been and is still being targeted by offers of fake jobs, mostly through email.  The nature of these jobs varies from scam to scam but they have certain things in common.  The worst commonality is that the scams, at some point, involve getting the victim to spend their own money in return for a fake check.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has posted advice on avoiding the fake check trap at: 

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-and-eport-fake-check-scams

Please look at it.

Bad checks are at the root of several different kinds of scam.  The FTC posting provides some examples such as Mystery Shopping, Prize Claiming, and Personal Assistants.  Variations of the Personal Assistants scam have been reported to the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) with increasing frequency since last March.

The initial email may appear to be from some private company, often saying that you were recommended by some office at UMBC as a particularly promising job candidate.  Alternatively, it may appear to be from some actual person on UMBC’s faculty or staff who is looking for someone to fill a part-time position in a department.  

The job is usually described as requiring 5-10 hours/week and paying $250-$350/week.  This is good enough pay to sound promising without seeming too good to be believed.

Once the victim has agreed to the job (without an interview or even speaking to anyone in person), they will be assigned to do something which costs them money on behalf of their supposed ‘employer’.  The victim may be assigned to purchase gift cards, or to send a check or even to wire money to some other party.

In order to cover the cost, the victim will be sent a check covering the amount spent plus some more for ‘salary’.  The victim is instructed to deposit the check and then to spend their own funds immediately.  After 3 to 5 days, the victim’s bank will send notification that the check did not clear and that no money has been credited to their account.  The money they spent on behalf of the scammer is now gone.

Please look at the FTC advice for more detailed information about not losing your money by avoiding these scams, and about how to report them to the FTC.  Here’s the link again:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-and-eport-fake-check-scams

If you receive what you think is a scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

In addition to any other reports you make, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of them and the envelope they came in.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice.