Student Union
Scammers Scare Students Into Giving Up Personal Information
The call comes late at night, waking up a student with an angry voice that issues a threat about the student’s visa status.
Your visa is out of compliance, the aggressive caller says, and instructs the student to send thousands of dollars to an account that he says belongs to “U.S. Immigration and Customs Services.”
When the student says she or he has to call home -- which can be many time zones away for many international students -- the caller warns that if there is any delay, the student will be deported.
The threat is a scam designed to make the unsuspecting student part with his or her money, say school administrators.
“It’s a pretty serious situation,” said Senem Bakar, director of international student and scholar services at American University in Washington.
International students are not familiar “with our police and how things work. And so they sometimes will fall victim to these kinds of calls,” said Masume Assaf, director of international student and scholar advising at Pennsylvania State University.
Scams also come in what look like official -- but cleverly disguised – letters that would make it appear as if the correspondence comes from the U.S. tax agency, the International Revenue Service. These make international students more likely to buy into them.
In one instance a form with the heading, “IRS Form 2623 third-party consent,” tells the individual to complete it with personal banking details, send it back to the IRS for processing, and wait for a refund.
“And it looks pretty legitimate,” Assaf said. But instead, their accounts are hacked.
The legitimate document is Form 2624, or “Consent for Third Party Contact.”
The legitimate immigration agencies include U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Headlines are full of stories about students who have been scammed. “I was a Chinese grad student and lost all my money to a scam,” wrote Xinlu Liang, a recent graduate of the University of Southern California, for the Los Angeles Times. “How could I have been so gullible?”
Wichita State University in Kansas publishes a page of warnings, alerting students about the scams that include calls to Chinese students from people speaking in Mandarin.
“The caller encourages the victim to fly to China to complete an official statement. They may warn you not to contact any other people including your parents because you are involved in a ‘criminal case’ saying that anyone (friends or family) who is in contact with you may also be in danger,” the web page instructs.
At the same time, the scammer contacts the student’s family members or friends, saying the student has had a car accident or has been kidnapped.
The student has been warned not to contact their family. When their family can’t reach them, they think “something terrible has happened to their child and so they wire money to the scammer to ‘help’ the student with their emergency,” according to Witchita State.
Another way students can get scammed is through eBay and Craigslist, online sites where people buy and sell goods or services.
In some cases, international students who have to shop for housing online arrange to rent a property without seeing it first. When they show up to move in, they find the unit already occupied.
Scammers call from many different phone numbers and use different voices, and fake or temporary numbers that cannot be properly tracked appear on the phone’s Caller ID display. When the number is dialed, the caller hears a message saying the number is out of service.
“There is no grace period. They are very persistent. They are very authoritative,” Bakar said about scammers.
“Caller ID, which used to mean something, means nothing now,” Bakar said.
Assaf elaborates, explaining that scammers disguise their numbers to make it appear as if the police or legitimate agencies are calling. Assaf said she has had this experienced.
“John Smith” called, saying he was from the Montgomery County Police Station. When she realized it was a scam, she pushed back.
But the scammer was confident.
“I said to him, ‘Oh no, I know what you're doing.’ And he said, ‘Look, (...) see the number on your phone?’…‘Look it up.’ (It was) the Montgomery County Police Station” number, she said.
It’s tricky figuring out which calls are real. For some students, this thinking is intuitive. For others, it’s not.
“Some people, you know, it's an easy thing. For others, the students especially, when you get somebody on the phone that’s pressuring you for money and you’re scared, the brain’s telling you this: ‘There's something wrong here.’
“But your blood pressure and your heart are telling you, ‘Oh my gosh, (...) I'm in panic mode. I need to listen and get this done because I have an emergency,’” said Christina Lehnertz, director, Immigration Compliance and Advising, International Programs and Services at George Mason University in Virginia.
As a way to help differentiate among scams, Lehnertz says international students should be aware of the information they put online, especially in surveys. Red flags include submitting credit card information, their date of birth or Social Security numbers.
“Getting them to be able to tell the difference between a real survey, a real online survey and something that is phishing -- that's a challenge,” Lehnertz said. Phishing is an attempt to obtain sensitive information by fraudulent means.
Young people are not the only targets for scammers and hackers.
“Many grandparents get those kinds of calls as well. Or parents get those calls that … their child or their grandchild is in jail, they need to send money immediately,” Assaf added.
A recent scam uses an app to manipulate photos of people -- mostly women -- with clothes on to make them look like their clothes are off. If a scammer sent a text to female students threatening to publish nude photos unless a ransom is paid, the students might be so embarrassed -- especially if they are from a more modest culture -- that they would wire money to buy the photos.
“If someone is pressuring you to do something, that’s fake,” Bakar said in an interview with VOA.
Assaf says that people are becoming smarter about recognizing scams but are still bad at it. Assaf adds that students need to realize that scamming happens anywhere and to anyone.
Experts say there are ways to tell if someone is scamming you:
· The caller pretending to be from the U.S. government asks for money. Real government officials never ask for money over the phone.
· There is pressure for students to pay now rather than letting them pay later.
· The officials do not give students time to think about the situation overall.
When asked what advice she would give international students to avoid scams, Assaf offered this: “911 will never call you,” she said. “You call them.”
See all News Updates of the Day
China’s youth unemployment fuels rise in postgraduate studies
Youth unemployment in China climbed to nearly 19% in August, its highest level so far this year, according to official data. Analysts say that the higher level of youth unemployment is driving more college graduates to enroll in graduate schools to escape the job search as the world’s second-largest economy struggles.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, or NBS, late last week, the unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds rose from 17.1% in July to 18.8% in August. One big reason for the uptick in joblessness, the NBS said, is that nearly 12 million students graduated from Chinese universities this June, heightening competition in an already tough job market.
Postgraduates overtake graduates
“The job market has shrunk, and at the same time there are still so many graduates. Too many people are idling every day,” said Lin Chan-Hui, an assistant professor of the General Education Center at Feng Chia University in Taiwan. “Another way out is to return to school to study further and temporarily escape the competitive workplace.”
Some Chinese universities say they are seeing more postgraduate students than undergraduates.
According to the state-backed digital publication The Paper, the number of graduate students at Lanzhou University exceeded the total number of undergraduate students for the first time. Lanzhou University is located in the capital of northwestern China’s Gansu Province.
In eastern China’s coastal Zhejiang Province, the Zhejiang University of Technology shows 5,382 new graduate students were admitted this year, beating out the number of new undergraduate students by 40.
The trend was already picking up at more famous Chinese universities last year.
Last December, Beijing’s Tsinghua University said the number of undergraduate freshmen in the previous academic year was 3,760, while the number of master's and doctoral students was 12,069.
Shanghai’s Fudan University in October 2023 reported 15,000 undergraduate students and nearly 37,000 graduate students.
China's Ministry of Education said that last year there were more than 47 million people enrolled in higher education institutes, 1.3 million were graduate students, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Lei, a higher education consultant in Shenzhen, who due to the sensitivity of the subject only gave his surname, told VOA the trend of higher education is moving toward "college graduates who don’t go to graduate school would immediately become unemployed" amid China's economic slowdown.
"On one hand, studying in graduate school can really help you find a job. On the other hand, it’s also an avoidance mentality,” Lei said.
Wandering masters and doctors
Feng Chia University’s Lin said that having an undergraduate degree is not enough in fields like technological innovation and scientific research, so it is still necessary to get a postgraduate degree in certain fields.
On the other hand, he said, China has too many people getting doctorates and master’s degrees and not enough technical and vocational education so there will be "fierce competition for upper-level work, but no one does the lower-level work." Highly educated young people are not willing to engage in grassroots work, Lin said, so there will be more and more "wandering masters and doctors."
Lin said the geopolitical tension between China and the U.S. has also made studying abroad for a postgraduate degree harder, so more students choose a domestic one instead.
Chinese netizens seem to agree that waiting for the job market to improve is their best hope.
A Hunan netizen on China’s Weibo social media platform under the name "Da Ke Ya Tang" said: "The market will not be able to provide so many jobs in the foreseeable future, so we have to leave the problem to the future."
"If colleges and universities cannot adapt to the country's demand for innovative and pioneering talents and reform the way students are trained, more employment pressure may accumulate in society in a few years," writer Wang Guojin said in a post on Weibo.
COVID students coping?
A PhD student in Shanghai who, due to the sensitivity of the subject, only gave his surname Zeng, told VOA the increase in master's and doctoral students is also because many graduate students went to college during the COVID-19 pandemic and are struggling to adapt. Zeng blames remote learning for their struggles with social interaction and the skills needed to compete in the job market.
"This group of college students obviously lacks some socialization skills, at least in recruitment interviews,” Zeng said. “They can't reach the same level as the previous students.”
Zeng adds that monthly stipends for master's and doctoral students ranges from roughly $143 to $700 and Chinese universities encourage entrepreneurship by providing funds to start small projects through competitions.
“Who wouldn’t want to continue their studies and earn money at the same time?” she asked.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
Many US college students eligible for federal food money
Many college students in the United States are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, previously known as food stamps, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But often, students don’t take advantage of the program because of complicated rules or a lack of awareness. U.S. News and World Report explains who can enroll and how to get benefits. (September 2024)
Islamic group files lawsuit against University of Georgia
The chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in the U.S. state of Georgia filed a lawsuit against the University of Georgia alleging anti-Muslim discrimination.
The lawsuit says students associated with a group advocating for Palestinian justice have been the target of harassment on campus, and the university took no meaningful action to end the harassment, Atlanta News First reported. (September 2024)
Board approves more non-lethal weapons for UCLA police after Israel-Hamas war protests
The University of California board of regents approved Thursday additional non-lethal weapons requested by UCLA police, which handled some of the nation's largest student protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
Clashes between protestors and counter-protestors earlier this year on the campus led to more than a dozen injuries, and more than 200 people were arrested at a demonstration the next day.
The equipment UCLA police requested and the board approved included pepper balls and sponge rounds, projectile launchers and new drones. The board also signed off on equipment purchase requests for the nine other police departments on UC campuses.
Student protesters at the regents meeting were cleared from the room after yelling broke out when the agenda item was presented.
Faculty and students have criticized UCLA police for their use of non-lethal weapons in campus demonstrations, during which some protesters suffered injuries.
During public comment, UCLA student association representative Tommy Contreras said the equipment was used against peaceful protestors and demonstrators.
"I am outraged that the University of California is prioritizing funding for military equipment while slashing resources for education," Contreras said. "Students, staff and faculty have been hurt by this very equipment used not for safety but to suppress voices."
California law enforcement agencies are required by state law to submit an annual report on the acquisition and use of weapons characterized as "military equipment." A UC spokesperson called it a "routine" agenda item not related to any particular incidents.
"The University's use of this equipment provides UC police officers with non-lethal alternatives to standard-issue firearms, enabling them to de-escalate situations and respond without the use of deadly force," spokesperson Stett Holbrook said.
Many of the requests are replacements for training equipment, and the drones are for assisting with search and rescue missions, according to Holbrook. The equipment is "not military surplus, nor is it military-grade or designed for military use," Holbrook said.
UCLA police are requesting 3,000 more pepper balls to add to their inventory of 1,600; 400 more sponge and foam rounds to their inventory of 200; eight more "less lethal" projectile launchers; and three new drones.
The report to the regents said there were no complaints or violations of policy found related to the use of the military equipment in 2023.
History professor Robin D.G. Kelley said he spent an evening with a student in the emergency room after the student was shot in the chest during a June 11 demonstration.
"The trauma center was so concerned about the condition of his heart that they kept him overnight to the next afternoon after running two echocardiograms," Kelley said the day after the student was injured. "The student was very traumatized."
UC's systemwide director of community safety Jody Stiger told the board the weapons were not to be used for crowd control or peaceful protests but "life-threatening circumstances" or violent protests where "campus leadership have deemed the need for law enforcement to utilize force to defend themselves or others."
Historically Black colleges see surge in applications
After the Supreme Court’s ruling banning affirmative action in college applications, competitive schools are reporting a decline in first-time minority enrollment.
But the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities are seeing a surge in applications, Liam Knox writes in Inside Higher Ed. (September 2024)
