A wave of deceptive emails are flooding students’ inboxes, presenting paid opportunities that turn out to be fraudulent schemes. 

These emails started to circulate in the second week of February. 

“An email with my name on it said ‘Hey, contact me for more juicy details,’ and that’s just not how I write,” Frank Byrne, chair of the history department, said. “I thought it was identity theft initially.”

The emails appear to be from SUNY Oswego professors, sometimes teaching assistants, because they include current professor names in the username and present opportunities that align with the professors’ department. 

The subject lines may read as follows: “INTERN RESEARCH ROLE (REMOTE).”

The scammers offer a hefty sum of money, $450 a week in some cases, to entice students to look further into the opportunity. 

James Early, a computer science professor, was also a victim of impersonation. He said that the scammers have figured out a formula that is successful for them to target college students.

“You’ve got students that really want internships and they are really trying to get them and there is a subset of these people that don’t know what the [application] process is,” Early said. “They have intense desire to land these positions and they don’t know how to do it, so they fall victim to people who profess to know how to do it.”

When students inquire, they will be asked to answer questions regarding how and when they want to be paid, whether it is weekly or biweekly and if it will be by check or direct deposit. The scammer wants to know what the student’s financial institution is, as well.

“The sad truth is it’s so easy for these scammers to set up things like this,” Early said.

When students inquire, they will be asked to answer questions regarding how and when they want to be paid, whether it is weekly or biweekly and if it will be by check or direct deposit. The scammer wants to know what the student’s financial institution is as well.

“The sad truth is it’s so easy for these scammers to set up things like this,” Early said. 

SUNY Oswego’s Computer Technology Services (CTS) advises to report phishing to Gmail if you suspect a scam. They warn the campus against responding to emails requesting a username, date of birth, Social Security number or other sensitive information.

“I flagged it, contacted CTS about it and they said to just keep flagging it,” Byrne said.

“I tried to explain [to students] that there are very limited things that [the school] can do,” Early said. “They can block the imposter, but then they’ll just create another email address connected to somebody else and they just continue it.”

Adults between the ages of 18 and 59 were 448% more likely to lose money to employment opportunity scams than people over the age of 60 in 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The median reported loss was $500.

“It’s shocking, really,” Byrne said. “For it to be happening to students, I don’t know what to say to them.”

“I feel really bad for everybody involved; it is a colossal waste of time and I hate to see people victimized by losing money,” Early said. 

SUNY Oswego Career Services lists red flags to recognize when searching for jobs online, including “the salary and benefits offered seem ‘too good to be true,’” “emails are full of grammatical and spelling errors” and “employer asks for extensive personal information.”

“As a community, we have to frustrate [the scammers] with our vigilance,” Early said. “If they know it’s not going to work and are wasting their time sending emails, they’ll go elsewhere.”

Photo by Faith Summerville