Students target of confidence scams, campus safety unaware

Keene State College students may be falling victim to online and in-person scams. Groups and individuals are trying to persuade students to invest money in fictional organizations, under the pretense that the students will earn a large profit. However, in reality, they are losing money.

According to College Liaison Officer John Stewart, a current get-rich-quick scam involved students on campus being approached by a magazine salesperson.

“Not only did [the salesperson] only accept cash payments for the magazine subscription, but some of the students were literally escorted to the ATM machine so they could obtain the cash,” Stewart said.

Stewart said KPD researched the salesperson and whom they worked for and discovered the business is called International Clearance Exchange and is based out of Solana Beach, Calif. The business is in magazine dealers and distributors.

The Web site did not have much contact information, Stewart said, which is not a good sign.

“Their website only has their e-mail address as a contact for the company; this should be the first warning sign, as a legitimate company will have an address and telephone number to contact someone,” Stewart said.

According to Stewart, from New Hampshire alone, the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) Web site has received a lot of complaints regarding billing or collection issues, customer issues, delivery issues, refund or exchange issues and service issues and eight of the 12 complaints made to the BBB have been resolved.

What happened at KSC regarding this scam was an effort to get cash, Stewart said.
According to Director of Campus Safety, Amanda Warman, there is a long history of different types of scams that target college students. A common type occurring at KSC and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), are confidence scams.

“There’s confidence scams that tries to entice people by saying if you invest this little bit of money I’ll give you a lot of money,” Warman said. “They tap into people’s insecurities and their desire to have more money.”

According to Warman, for many students who are struggling to find employment, the idea of an investment sounds promising.

“We’re at a time where our economy is so bad that I think people really want to believe that they can get something for nothing,” Warman said.

Investigations surrounding the scams occurring on campus are ongoing, according to Warman. She said Campus Safety will take action when they hear from a student who was victimized.

“We haven’t identified any person that’s been directly contacted,” Warman said. “Usually they’re contacted by phone; some people are contacted in person.”

Warman said for those students who receive scams via e-mail, police will usually take a different approach.

“Generally, if it’s e-mail, they’ll set up fake e-mail accounts, they will go through different Web sites,” Warman said.

If the event happens in person, Warman said police will work in the area for a short period of time and then go some place else.

If a scammer is caught, Warman said the crime is typically identified as ‘theft by deception,’ although it depends on the amount of money and whether the victim was taken advantage of or not.

According to Warman, she sometimes looks up scams she hears about on Snopes.com. Students who suspect they have received a scam in an e-mail can look it up on this Web site to confirm if it is a real offer or a fake one.

In regards to who is sending the scams to students, Warman said it is probably an amateur scammer.

“My guess is that these people have no relation to UNH or Keene State and that they are using this as a way of introducing themselves and gaining their confidence,” Warman said.

UNH Public Safety Sergeant Gregory Bisson said his department hears of scams on a regular basis.

“They usually attack students with scams via e-mail; not staff members,” Bisson said. “Staff members can usually identify a scam.”

According to Bisson, the police department on campus hears about scams from students.

“They give us a call and we let them know to not give a reply,” Bisson said.

Bisson said he had not heard of this specific scam that hit both UNH and KSC. Warman said she also had not heard of this specific scam either.

Like Stewart said, education is the key to preventing these scams from happening.

“Educating people on what to look for and how to avoid being ripped off will stop these types of scams from occurring,” he said.