USC students lose thousands after scammers pose as professors and recruiters

It was going to be a good job.

She would be paid $620 per week to work as an assistant to a University of South Carolina professor who said he was in Australia helping students with disabilities. What’s more, she was going to get paid up front. The “professor” even sent her a check, which appeared to go through at first, according to a report from USC’s Police Department.

But there was a catch. She had to send her future employer $800 in iTunes gift cards and a check rewrite book. The next day, her bank called her to say the check she received was invalid and she had fallen victim to a scam, according to the police report.

In the past three weeks, USC PD has responded to three complaints alleging scammers have impersonated either USC professors or recruiters to earn students’ trust before stealing hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars from them.

Of the three reported instances, two students lost $2,600. A third student who was targeted by a fraudulent recruiter got suspicious and reported it to the police without losing any money. The names of the students and the professors they were impersonating were redacted — or blacked out — from the police reports, so The State was unable to contact the victims.

Though all three cases are open, police do not have suspects.

Hackers target colleges and universities millions of times a month, and while spam filters catch over 99 percent of malicious email, some of it sneaks through, according to a previous article from The State.

“Unfortunately, it is not uncommon across higher ed,” USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in a text message.

This story was originally published September 18, 2018 at 1:26 PM.