Several students nearly fell victim to a fake job advertisement on the Career Center’s job and internship database, which would have caused them to lose almost $2,000.
After 10 to 15 students answered the fraudulent ad for a receptionist position with “Adaptec Corporation,” a fake employer emailed several of the students instructions to deposit three $2,000 checks into their accounts, keep 10 percent for themselves and wire the rest to a specified account, according to an email sent to one of the students.
If the applicants could accomplish this “1st Test Assignment,” the employer said they would be qualified for the job.
The ad, which has been removed, is the second scam to slip through the “rigorous” screening process for postings on the Careers4Terps website in at least three years, said Career Center Recruiting Programs Coordinator Adrianne Bradford.
Additionally, the employer sent emails to students and signed them using the name of the student who first reported the incident to the Career Center, junior sociology major Ricardo Ruano. That prompted Ruano to alert University Police, who are investigating the source of the ad, police spokesman Capt. Marc Limansky said.
“If it seems like you’re making money too easily, just be leery of those type of arrangements,” Limansky said.
On March 7, Ruano tried to deposit the first check, which the fake employer mailed to his home, but the bank teller informed him it was illegitimate, he said. He emailed the “employer,” asking what he should do, and was told he could either open a new account or send his bank account number for a “direct deposit” transaction.
“It was already sketchy, and once he asked for my bank account, I thought, ‘You’re paying me directly, and you haven’t even hired me, I haven’t even met you, I’m not just gonna give [my account number] to you.'”
Ruano reported the incident to the Career Center, which removed the posting and blocked the fake employer the next morning.
Although Ruano said he was intrigued by the “easy money,” the employer’s task seemed unrealistic.
“Honestly, in the email it sounded like a Mission: Impossible movie,” Ruano said.
Bradford said a similar scam occurred last year in which someone posed as an employer online and used the name of a small business. However, she said the university does all it can to maintain students’ security.
“You’d have to be really, really smart to try to get under our radar, and only a few of them do and unfortunately this was one of those cases,” she said. “It looked like a nice, normal ad to sit in front of an office and help with the phone calls and filing.”
While some schools allow employers to post directly to job and internship databases, this university reviews all advertisements, Bradford said. Staff members reject about 10 postings a day for a variety of reasons, including using informal Hotmail and Gmail email addresses, lacking complete information or requesting personal information such as a student’s ethnicity or gender.
Another student planned to deposit the fake check before his mother stopped him and reported the site to the university, said Career Center spokesman William Jones.
“The fact that the student fell for it is kind of unfortunate,” Bradford added.
Jones said screening ads becomes more difficult when scammers post under a real company’s name, because when the Career Center vets the ad, a legitimate website, email address and company show up.
“Sometimes it’s really difficult to identify scams like this until students let us know, which is what we stress in our safety emails to students that if someone is asking for information like this to report it to us,” Jones said.
On Tuesday, the Career Center emailed Careers4Terps users about the fraudulent advertisement, warning users they “should not disclose social security numbers, credit card numbers, or bank account numbers to unknown employers and never spend any of your own money to obtain a position unless you are certain it is for a legitimate reason.”
The center sends similar emails multiple times each year, Bradford said, to make sure students are aware of the “red flags.”
Ruano said from now on, he will insist on meeting with employers face-to-face and be more skeptical of advertisements.
“I guess what I hear all the time is if it’s too easy, it’s not good,” he said.
Several students said they are wary of applications that require payments up front, but generally, they trust ads on Careers4Terps.
“Mostly I can establish its legitimacy by the fact that they usually have a point of contact, like a [human resources] representative or a recruiter,” junior electrical engineering major Jason Lenkowsky said. “I don’t have much doubt as to whether a job is a scam or not.”
lurye@umdbk.com
