Greg's Corner

Scam targets families of college students

By Greg Collier

One of every parent’s worst fears is getting the late night phone call and hearing a police officer on the other side. Rarely, does that bring good news. Now imagine the call is coming from out of state where your child attends college. Of course, you want to do anything you can to help your child, but what can you do being so far away? That’s when the helpful police officer offers a solution that can be done online. Except, the solution is no solution at all. In fact, it’s an even bigger problem.

That’s what’s currently happening to the parents of some college students across the country. Scammers are calling the parents of college students while impersonating campus police. Parents will see the phone number appear as their child’s college or university in their caller ID. The parents are then told the caller is with campus police and their child is in some kind of legal trouble. For example, a report from the University of Iowa said the scammers claimed the student had gotten into a fight and was currently being detained.

As with most scams, the scammers will try to emotionally manipulate a payment out of their victim. The scammers will threaten to take the student to jail if payment isn’t made. Typically, scammers will ask for a payment that can be done over the phone. Another report from Texas A&M University states that scammers there were asking for payment over the mobile payment app Venmo. This is done because once a payment goes through on apps like this, it’s gone forever.

Meanwhile, this is all going on while the student is completely unaware they’re being used as the bait in a scam.

If this scam sounds familiar, it should. The scam borrows heavily from both the grandparent scam and the virtual kidnapping scam, with some police impersonation thrown in.

If you receive a phone call like that about any family member or loved one, ask the callers for their information, such as name and badge number. Even if they give you the names of actual officers, don’t believe them until you verify their information. Hang up the call or use another device to contact the person who was supposedly arrested. You’ll more than likely find that person has not been arrested. Lastly, never send any money. Real law enforcement agencies will never ask for money over the phone.