Looking Out for Scams

With this type of scam, a call is placed to a student or a scholar by someone claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. taxing authority in the U.S. The caller typically claims that the IRS is about to take some type of legal action against the victim unless they immediately wire money to a certain address or bank account. The caller is not actually from the IRS, but is a scammer stealing your money.

Employment scams involve someone contacting a job seeker with a job offer. The scammer will offer to send the victim an advance payment before any work is done. They may tell the victim to keep a percentage of the deposit and send the rest of the money to a different address. The scammer may be using the victim for illegal transactions or may be trying to gain access to the victim’s money.

In this case, the scammer calls and claims to be holding a victim’s family member or other loved one hostage. The scammer demands that money be wired to a bank account immediately or the loved one will be harmed or killed.

Many international students and scholars lease and sublet apartments in the St. Louis area. It is important for those who are seeking to rent (or sublease) an apartment to beware of possible scams. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, there are three (3) primary ways to know whether or not an apartment rental opportunity or inquiry is a scam:

1. They want you to wire money. This is the surest sign of a scam. There’s never a good reason to wire money to pay a security deposit, application fee or first month’s rent. Wiring money is the same as sending cash – once you send it, you have no way to get it back.
2. They want a security deposit or first month’s rent before you’ve met or signed a lease. It’s never a good idea to send money to someone you’ve never met in person for an apartment you haven’t seen. If you can’t visit an apartment or house yourself, ask someone you trust to go and confirm that it’s for rent. In addition to setting up a meeting, do a search on the landlord and listing. If you find the same ad listed under a different name, that’s a clue that it may be a scam.
3. They say they are located outside of the country but have a plan to get the keys into your hands. It might involve a lawyer or “agent” working on their behalf. Some scammers even create fake keys. Be skeptical and don’t send money overseas. If you can’t meet in person, see the apartment or sign a lease before you pay, keep looking.

Online marketplace sites like Craigslist and Offerup are also sometimes used in scams or robberies. Sergeant Wayne says the WUPD has seen quite a few crimes that have been carried out using such websites, for example, “where a student arranges through the website to buy a phone or something and as soon as they meet the other person and produce the money, the other person grabs the money and runs away. Or they may be given what looks like a phone, but it doesn’t work or it’s only an empty phone case.”