University police have launched a campaign to educate UCLA students about the dangers of Internet scams after numerous members of the local community were recently robbed through Craigslist.
College students have always been prime targets for Internet scammers. But the prevalence of online robberies in the past year has caused UCPD to try to prevent scams by keeping students informed, said James Echols, a UCPD crime prevention officer.
Scammers often target college students because younger people have a reputation for being less aware and inexperienced in financial exchanges, Echols said.
Police are currently investigating a case where a scammer sent a fake check for more than the asking price to a member of the UCLA community who was selling an item online, according to a police report released last week. The scammer insisted the seller cash the check within a day and wire back the excess money. By the time the check was discovered to be fake ““ within five days ““ the seller had already wired money to the scammer.
The seller lost $1,500 to $2,500 and could no longer contact the scammer to get the money back, Echols said.
Craigslist does not compensate money lost in botched deals because they have disclaimers warning against fraud on their website, he said.
Jawhara Tariq, a third-year geography/environmental science student, narrowly missed losing thousands of dollars last week in a similar scam.
She posted an advertisement on Craigslist looking for a subletter for her apartment, located near the UCLA campus.
A woman contacted her expressing interest in the apartment. She said she was out of the country, but would arrive in the U.S. soon and would need a place to stay. The woman said her father would pay for the apartment. Tariq received a check for $2,000, almost $1,000 more than she had asked for, and a request that she wire the remainder back, she said.
When she tried to deposit the check at her bank, she discovered that it was counterfeit. Tariq said she attempted to contact the person who sent her the check but got no response.
Tariq said she believes her last-minute decision to deposit the check at a bank rather than an ATM saved her from losing money, because the bank teller caught the fraud right away.
Tariq had listed her apartment as “near a university.” She said she received a similar scam email attempt soon after putting the advertisement back online, but did not reply to it. Tariq has not yet informed the police about the scams.
The scammer seemed to be the same person in Tariq’s case, she said. But these instances are very common and instigated by several different people looking to take advantage of college students, Echols said.
But there seems to be one scammer that robs Bruins in a very particular way.
On two separate instances, the scammer pretended to have an apartment to sublet in the Westwood area. The person met with apartment hunters, and produced a fake lease and key for them to sign in exchange for a deposit. The person did not give the renters a copy of the lease, according to the police report.
On both occasions, the renter arrived at the apartment to discover the lease was not valid, Echols said. The building manager informed the buyers that the person who accepted their deposit never lived in the building and had no authority to sublet the apartment, he said. When they tried to reach the scammer to get their deposits back, they could no longer make contact, Echols said.
“A lot of criminals feel like the college atmosphere is a target-rich environment,” Echols said. “But I don’t want that to be the reality.”
University police have tried to prevent these crimes by educating UCLA students about the potential dangers of Craigslist, Echols said. He posted the police report to the UCPD website last week, and recently began talking about the problem and passing out informational fliers at summer orientation sessions.
Police suggest Craigslist users insist on cash offers, ask the buyer for proper identification and receive a copy of their lease to avoid being scammed.
Melissa Destefano, a second-year English student who lost $6,000 dollars in a Craigslist scam several years ago, said she welcomes police attempts to educate college students.
“It is definitely important,” she said. “A lot of kids don’t have enough fear. With social networking our generation doesn’t have enough of a filter.”
Anyone with information about Internet scams or who feels they’ve been scammed through Craigslist can call UCPD at 310-825-1491.