Our office has been made aware of a scam that is targeting international students. The scam involves fraudulent phone calls from perpetrators pretending to be representatives from Chinese agencies and official organizations. Students have been told that they are under investigation for suspected criminal activities. Please click here for more information.
If you receive a similar call, please report it to us so we can follow up accordingly.
In this scam, perpetrators typically:
- Tell students that their passport is being used to open bank accounts for criminal purposes.
- Impersonate shipping companies saying that the students' packages were intercepted by Chinese customs for containing illegal items.
- Inform students that a bank account holding their name was used in illegal and fraudulent activities such as money laundering.
- Transfer the students to someone claiming to be a police official or criminal prosecutor.
- Solicit money from the students to "exonerate" them from the crimes mentioned above.
Please be advised that no government agency will ever demand money or sensitive personal information in this fashion. You should never comply with such requests, and never provide personal information, such as social security number, bank account number or credit card number to anyone they don't know. If you receive a call, hang up immediately.
In addition, there have also been reports of students receiving calls from scammers pretending to be from the Social Security Administration. For more information, please refer to the Federal Trade Commission's "This is What a Social Security Scam Sounds Like" blog post.
