It has come to our attention, as well as the attention of the Blacksburg Police Department, that the latest telephone scam going around is targeting Tech students, especially the international students. People who claim to be either from law enforcement or from a federal government agency will call a student directly and tell the student that he/she owes money for some reason and, if they do not pay immediately, they will be arrested. They may have some information about the student which, in reality, can be found in most cases with a simple on-line search. What makes this worse is that the callers are actually able to spoof a legitimate law enforcement agency number which shows up on caller id. Therefore, the number looks legitimate, so the caller must therefore be legitimate. The student is usually instructed to go to a store that either wires money or sells debit/credit cards that can be preloaded with money, and then are directed to send the money to an address. The caller further tells the student if they hang up, they will be arrested. In some cases, the caller stays on the line with the student while the student walks to the store to get the card and walks them through the procedure while they purchase it. In most cases, the caller speaks very poor English. For our international students, NO legitimate law enforcement agency in this country, nor ANY legitimate U.S. government agency conducts business in this manner. NO legitimate U.S. law enforcement agency will ever call you, tell you that you owe money for anything, and that if you dont pay, you will be arrested. The best advice we can give is, if you receive a call like this, hang up immediately and call either the VTPD, the Blacksburg PD, or the nearest law enforcement agency where you might be and report it. There is absolutely NO situation in the U.S. wherein if you do not immediately pay money, you will be arrested. To our wonderful store keepers in the area that provide this type of service, if you get a student who is asking to buy these types of things that might appear to be nervous or upset, or even talking with someone on the phone while making the purchase and appear to be asking for instructions from the caller or appear to be following instructions from the caller, please take a moment and ask if everything is o.k. If they say they are trying to get the product to send to someone so they wont be arrested, please call the local authorities immediately. Were all members of the Hokie family, lets continue to look out for each other. Lets continue to look out for our Hokie family members from overseas who might not be as familiar with how things work in the U.S. Together, we make a formidable Hokie family! Stay safe.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 18:44:42 +0000
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