Digital Dangers: How College Students Become Easy Targets for Scammers

Jeff Matevish  0:00  
Hey, well, good morning, Drew.

Drew Thomas  0:07  
Good morning, or afternoon, or evening, depending on where you happen to be or when you happen to be listening to this.

Jeff Matevish  0:28  
You're right. You're right. Welcome to 2 Cents, a shorter version of Bank Chats, where we just kind of talk about current events, things that interest us that we found in the news and you know, anything else like that.

Drew Thomas  0:41  
That's, that's really what it comes down to, is things that interest us, yeah, and we hope somebody else finds them interesting as well, right? Yeah, so.

Jeff Matevish  0:48  
Today we're going to talk about some scams that target college students and K through 12, since school is now back in session for pretty much everyone, yeah, in the United States at least.

Drew Thomas  1:01  
Yeah. I mean, these years go, these years go by really quick. I'll tell you, it seems like just yesterday was like either Fourth of July or even Memorial Day, and now all of a sudden, we're right back into the swing of things.

Jeff Matevish  1:01  
Yeah, once, once April hits, pretty much the rest of the year flies, at least for us.

Drew Thomas  1:17  
Yeah, yeah, 100%. So, yeah, so, so you're right. I mean, kids are back in school, and not only younger kids through high school, but obviously, like you said, college students starting back, some people starting college for the first time, right? So, so, yeah, so let's talk, so you, you brought up a good, and this was totally on you, that you, you kind of brought up this idea of, you know, we talk about scams for people in general all the time, but there are seriously things that college students specifically, oh yeah, should be looking out for, right?

Jeff Matevish  1:50  
Well, yeah. I mean, so we've brought up in the past that, you know, we kind of, scams towards seniors, we kind of highlight, yeah, actually, in 2024 the FTC reported that individuals from 20 to 29 lost money to fraud and scams more frequently than those aged 70 to 79. Wow, so yeah, we don't highlight that enough, but college age students are getting scammed more than ever, I guess.

Drew Thomas  2:15  
Yeah, I think that we tend to assume. And maybe this is an, maybe this is an assumption born out of technology 10 years ago, we tend to assume that that elder scams are more common because the older people don't understand technology. But what we tend to forget is that younger people haven't been exposed to the world as much as the older people, and maybe are a little more naive.

Jeff Matevish  2:38  
And they're online more often, so there's more of a chance of being scammed.

Drew Thomas  2:41  
Yeah, that's also a very good point. You know, sometimes older people are not always quick on the draw when it comes to adopting new technology, and younger people definitely are, right. So, what are some of the things that college students should be looking out for? Let's, let's kind of start going down a list of things and kind of, yeah, kind of talk through them here.

Jeff Matevish  3:01  
Like everyone else, texting and phishing scams are huge in college too. The website that I was looking at gave a really good example, especially now, right at the end of vacation season into the start of school, be careful what you put on social media. If you post pictures of your vacation, you know, yeah, it's a red flag for a scammer to call you up and say, hey, you know you were in the Virgin Isles recently. Did you, you know, make a credit card transaction? And of course, you're going to say, yes, I did, you know, because they know that you were just there, and that opens up, you know, a can of worms to the scammer. Now, getting your information from you.

Drew Thomas  3:45  
You know, it's really funny that you say that, because I grew up in an era where, you know, people didn't have cell phones. People didn't, you know me, when I was growing up, you still had to talk on the phone in the kitchen to your friends and stuff, you know, right? But answering machines became a thing, right? I mean, the, you know, people didn't have answering machines prior to like, 1980 you know. And so as answering machines became more popular use, found that people were putting stuff on their answering machines, their outgoing message saying, hey, we're going to be in, right, wherever, we're going to be on vacation, whatever. And then people were breaking into people's houses because they knew they weren't home, right, right? So, the idea of not sharing too much personal information, I think, goes back farther than what we tend to think. You know, you're going back 40 years now, of telling people, hey, listen, don't, don't tell people that you're on vacation. And yet, now with social media, it's even more prevalent, because people want to share that stuff, like, right away, right, right, right, yeah.

Jeff Matevish  4:44  
Don't, don't do that.

Drew Thomas  4:45  
Yeah. Okay, so, so, yeah, that's a good point. So, what next?

Jeff Matevish  4:50  
Okay, just to continue on that one. Oh, yeah. More. These scams are getting more complex too. It's not usually just a one-person scam anymore. So, after they've made contact with you and asked for your information, they'll typically pass you off to another scammer. They'll put on a YouTube video in the background that makes it sound like they're in a big call center. You know, a lot of commotion, pass you on to someone else, put you on hold, just make it look like it's a big company. And, you know, not, not really. It's, you know, just one person, yeah, maybe two people.

Drew Thomas  5:26  
That's crazy. I would imagine, I mean, I, you know, thinking like a scammer, you could even call somebody up and say, hey, you forgot your, we think that you may have forgotten some personal items in your hotel room. Can you give me your, oh, yeah, can you verify your driver's license number? Can you verify a credit card number or something for me so I can prove that the wallet we found in your room is yours. And if you're not holding your wallet right at that moment or something, you very well might say, oh my gosh, yeah. Let me go ahead and give you some information. Just yeah, you got to be so careful about what you give out. Don't give out any of that stuff.

Jeff Matevish  5:58  
Another one is, I mean, not so much right now, it's not an issue, because everybody's, you know, back to school, but searching for off-campus housing can be an issue. You know, if a, if a deal is too good to be true, or the landlord is asking for payments through, you know, maybe Cash App, or, you know, a payment app, peer-to-peer payment app. Be a little cautious of that.

Drew Thomas  6:21  
Yeah, the it's, it amazes me, the older I get, how often your grandmother's sage advice still applies. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, most certainly.

Jeff Matevish  6:33  
And in today, I know with the prices of everything, everybody's looking for a deal. So yeah, people are falling for it more often than they ever have.

Drew Thomas  6:41  
Yeah, and from what I was reading along those lines, with that kind of scam, you know, sometimes these apartments and places don't even exist. You know, they're, they're, you know, people are looking for apartments, houses, things like that, sometimes from out of state, sometimes even out of the country if they're going to a school, you know, say they're from France, and they're coming to a school in the US, and they're looking for a place to live. And then, you know, they, they, you know, people list these apartments and things online, and they don't exist that, you know that, but they happen to be near a popular college, a big college or something, right? People sign up, send down payments, you know, to all, you have to send me a down payment for the first month's rent. So, they send this money ahead, and then they end up in the country and go into the school and they find out that, that, that apartment just doesn't exist, right? It's right. So, yeah, you got to be so careful.

Jeff Matevish  6:41  
Do your due diligence. Yeah, look, yeah, do research online. Use Google Maps. Look at the, the address.

Drew Thomas  7:32  
Yeah, make sure the address isn't a Kwik-E-Mart, right? You know.

Jeff Matevish  7:33  
Google Street View is a good thing, yeah.

Drew Thomas  7:38  
Yeah. I mean, that's 100% with today's world, you, with Google Maps, like you said, you can check and make sure that an address at least looks like a residential property, if nothing else, right, you know. And speaking from experience, you know when my, when my stepdaughter went to college, the college itself tends to know where the housing is right. So, you know, call the college office, housing office, whatever, and just say, hey, listen, you know, I'm looking at a house or an apartment or something at this address. Is that, is that a legit place? You know it, chances are somebody at the school probably knows that, that location, if it's a legitimate place for students to rent, right, right. Yeah. The other one that I, that I came across was, was actually employment scams. According to the ITRC, scammers may try to steal identities from unsuspecting students through enticing job offers. Criminals may prey upon a student's money, personal information, even physical safety. So, yeah, I mean, you know college students looking for a side gig, something to earn some money while they're in college. And again, you know they're, they're, you're giving out all this information, thinking you're getting a job, when in reality, you're, you know, they're just collecting data on you and then using it to wipe you out or get you to send the money or, or steal your identity and go open a loan somewhere. I mean, it's not always stealing money from you that can, can, that can damage you. It can be just stealing your personal information. And that's true, yeah, you know. And most college students, in my opinion, in my experience, they're not looking at their credit report every day. They don't know that somebody's opened up a loan in their name until it's too late.

Jeff Matevish  9:15  
Right, right. Yeah. I mean, and you know, if this job opportunity is not even something you applied for, you know, be very cautious of that, you know.

Drew Thomas  9:23  
Yeah, that's the same, along the same lines as those lotteries. If you didn't, if you didn't enter a lottery, you didn't win, right? You know, yeah, that's, that's always, that's always one.

Jeff Matevish  9:37  
What does another, another one was be cautious when applying for scholarships. I didn't even think about this one. Yeah, so you're giving a lot of information up front when you're applying for scholarships, make sure it's a, it's a credible scholarship, a credible business that's offering it, and if not, if you have doubts, go to your financial aid office and see if they've heard of this scholarship before, or just, you know, go through your financial aid office for scholarships in general.

Drew Thomas  10:03  
Sure, yeah. And there are definitely legitimate websites out there where you can search for scholarships, find out whether or not a business is really offering it, that sort of thing. Sometimes you can, like you said, find out through the financial aid office at your college who might be offering scholarships, right? But, yeah, you know college students, they're, you know, college we've talked about this. We talked about this on a couple of different episodes, including with George Kamel, whenever he was on the show, about how, you know, how expensive college is getting. And so, you know, students are looking for any way they can to help pay off loans or handle their, their day-to-day needs, financially, being able to just be able to buy pizza and things like that, you know? So, you're right. I mean, if you, if you see a scholarship out there, financial aid, you're giving a ton of information to them, and you want to make sure that you're actually applying for something that's legit. Yeah.

Jeff Matevish  10:59  
And along the same lines, be cautious when you're opening your credit card. You do, again, you're giving a lot of information up front and, you know, yeah, maybe a fictitious company trying to give you a credit card option.

Drew Thomas  11:11  
Yeah, and you know what that's, I mean, that brings up a point, which, again, I think we've, there's a fly in here.

Jeff Matevish  11:19  
Welcome to, that's our guest.

Drew Thomas  11:25  
The credit card thing we've talked about before, too, I think when we talked about credit cards versus loans and things like that, but it bears repeating that, especially if you're a college student, and I know when I went to college, they would roll out the red carpet for college students to sign up for credit cards, and they were, I always joke it was the most expensive free T-shirt I ever, I ever had, because you get a free T-shirt if you sign up for a credit card and you don't realize what you're doing. You know, you're signing up for a card that has, you know, 25% interest, and you're buying your, your Saturday night pizza and beverage of choice. We'll put it that way. And you think, oh, this is just free money, and it's so not, yeah, so definitely be aware of that. You know, go to your parents, go to the bank that you've grown up going to that your parents go to, whatever. See if they can help you with a credit card option. See if you can find something that offers low interest or something specifically designed for students. Don't just randomly grab a credit card if somebody walks up to you, you know, on the college quad and says, hey, you want to sign up for a credit card, yeah? Be aware. Yeah. Be aware.

Jeff Matevish  12:36  
That's what my parents did whenever I was in college. My first credit card was for a local bank that I could pay it in person, so they, you know, and my credit card statement would come to their house, so they knew whenever I had a bill due, and they would remind me, hey, you got a bill here, you have to come home and yeah, you know, pay that, you know, yeah.

Drew Thomas  12:54  
And my guess is it probably had a relatively low credit line too, yeah. So, you know, you didn't end up with a $20,000 credit line right, and rack up a ridiculous bill, like, you know, a lot of those entry-level or college cards, you know, sort of cap you out at, maybe, you know, probably, these days, around $2,000 to $5,000 maybe something like that, which is still a significant amount of money.

Jeff Matevish  12:54  
Right, right. Or they're secured against another bank account, or something like that, something like that, yeah, absolutely.

Drew Thomas  13:22  
So, this is maybe one that I came across that is maybe more for, for students that are sort of getting close to graduation, okay, but they talk about student loan debt relief scams. Oh, yeah. So, these are offers that help to pay down your student loans. The Federal Trade Commission recently announced that they shut down a scam that bulk, that took students for over $23 million. Wow. And, you know, a lot of times the, the bait on the hook is, hey, send me X number of dollars, right? And, you know, we'll as a, as a, as an application fee, and then we'll start you in the process of helping to find ways to pay down your student debt with less interest or more less time or whatever. And it's, it's, it's a total scam every time, yeah. So, you know, while there are ways out there to try to do that. Make sure, again, you're going through legitimate sources to try to find them, whether it's your trusted bank, your school, if your parents are aware of what's going on and are financially savvy and can help, you definitely go to somebody you trust to help find these things. Don't, don't pick one out randomly on the web, and, yeah, send your information in an application fee, and then it's right.

Jeff Matevish  14:46  
If there's a commercial about it, they probably don't have your best interest in mind.

Drew Thomas  14:50  
Probably not, you know, because, honestly, those commercials cost money to air, and you got to wonder whether you know your application fee is going to air that commercial so that they can take on more people with their application fees and yeah, it's, it's, it's sad, but it's true. We live in this society where you have to just be so cautious about just being smart about what you sign up for and what you get involved in. You know for sure, yeah. You got anything, what else do you got on your list?

Jeff Matevish  15:16  
Last one for college was just being cautious about using public Wi Fi. Now that we live in a world of internet, public Wi Fi is accessible in most places. You go to McDonald's and you can get on their Wi Fi. Not always the best thing to do. Hackers can steal your information. Use VPNs if you can, if you have one, yeah, or just don't, you know, use, a your phone as a hotspot, maybe, but try not hopping on that public Wi Fi unless you really have to.

Drew Thomas  15:46  
Yeah, there's, there's a term out there that people, I think, get a little bit it's, it's called a man in the middle attack. And a lot of people don't quite always gather what that means. But essentially it means that on any public Wi Fi, anybody can be on that same network. And if you are on the same network as somebody else, that person can theoretically see everything that's passing from your device to the network. It's really no different than when you share your printer with your home computer, right? You're on the same network. They can talk to one another. The data can be passed from one device to the next. So, on public Wi Fi, it's not so much that it's the business that is nefarious. You know, McDonald's, to your point, is not necessarily stealing your data, right, but...

Jeff Matevish  16:37  
But that guy sitting in the corner and his computer is sniffing your packets on your, on your connection, yeah.

Drew Thomas  16:43  
Sniffing my packets. That's ridiculous. Don't sniff my packets.

Jeff Matevish  16:49  
Sorry, sorry, okay.

Drew Thomas  16:53  
No, but you're right. Yeah, it's, explain what that is before we end up in like trouble with somebody.

Jeff Matevish  17:04  
So, when you're connected to the internet, you are sending and receiving data packets, and all they're doing is stealing those packets. Yeah, you know, yeah, data that's unencrypted. So, if you use a VPN or something that encrypts that, that data, it's a little harder for them to get access to your information. Yeah, yeah. And also, you know, make sure that the, if you're going to connect to public Wi Fi, make sure that it is the correct public Wi Fi. Yeah. Excellent, hackers can set up any, any, you know, on the on-the-fly Wi Fi connection that you connect to, and then they have instant access to everything.

Drew Thomas  17:36  
Sure, yeah, yeah. That's definitely something you got to be aware of with not even just restaurants things, but even hotels. Yeah, it's so easy with so many people staying in a hotel, right? All somebody has to do is book a room and set up an open, unpassword Wi Fi that says the hotel name, underscore "A". Yeah, or 1, or something like that, or, or guest, even. And most people, when they look for things like that, they're gonna, they're gonna see, oh, it says, you know, Hilton Guest, I'm gonna go ahead and agree to it and connect to it. And they think they're connecting to something legitimate when they're absolutely not. Yeah. So, especially with things like hotels. Normally hotels, they are, there is a even if you get free Wi Fi with your, with your booking, typically, you still have a gate you have to go through. You have to enter, say your last name and your room number, or something like that, when you're joining a hotel, Wi Fi to prove that you're a legitimate guest. But, you know, in a, in a, in a reverse way, it also helps to protect you, to give you that, that feeling of, hey, I'm not just joining some random open Wi Fi. I'm, you know, I'm giving, there's something I have to do, yeah, to gain access to it's a more secure network, yeah, yeah, yeah. The, the other thing that I came across, and this is really sad, but it's very true, essentially blackmail. You've got to be careful when it comes to being in college and with cell phones and smartphones and cameras and everything you know, for better or worse, you can argue either way, anything that you do in this world could be filmed. And if you do something that you wouldn't want your parents to see, or you wouldn't want your family to see, or you won't want your friends to see, you can't guarantee that they won't see it. And there are scams out there where they will send a college student a video of them doing something that they wouldn't want to be made public, and say, if you don't pay me money, I'm gonna release this. It's straight up blackmail.

Jeff Matevish  19:56  
And it could be something that was on your phone to begin with. So, that was another one. Don't live on your phone. Don't live on your device. You know, don't, don't keep, as you know, your entire life's worth of information on one device. Yes, if that gets hacked, and yeah, your life is leaked.

Drew Thomas  20:11  
Yeah, yeah. And really, I mean, we've, you know, I mean, speaking from experience, there are definitely things that I did when I was younger that I am really happy I lived in an era where it wasn't easy to film things like that, and we have seen politicians and actors and actresses and things get, get caught in things that they did 30 or 40 years ago, that suddenly they're getting canceled in the media and all this kind of stuff. But you don't want to be, you don't want to be put in a position where, as a college student that's maybe getting ready to graduate, you're out there looking for a job, and now all of a sudden, somebody is threatening to put something online somewhere that can damage your reputation or give you a, make it more difficult for you to achieve your goals.

Jeff Matevish  20:55  
Yeah, along those same lines, too, anything that was on the internet is always going to be on the internet. So, if you have yeah, you know, stuff on your social media that you don't want your employer seeing, you know, that's a, yeah, problem, yeah. So, don't post things that you know, you don't want you know your employer to know.

Drew Thomas  21:13  
Yeah, and you're absolutely right. And, and if you don't think employers look at that stuff, think again. Oh yeah. You know, when you put resumes out there, one of the first things that a lot of HR, HR departments and management team members and things will do is go check out your, your LinkedIn, you know.

Jeff Matevish  21:31  
That's, I saw your name pop up, you know, whenever we, you know, you first contacted me, yeah, you know. You know.

Drew Thomas  21:40  
Now, you know, hopefully those employers are not looking at your personal stuff, right? Hopefully they're just looking at your professional social pages and things like that. But you don't know that they're not right, right? So, honestly, it's just one of those things again, just if it's not out there, it doesn't matter what they look at, right? So, only share what you, what you really think you might want seen, right? And just be aware that, you know, in college and places like that, you're not always thinking about the fact that you could be getting filmed and then potentially somebody coming after you. So, keep those things in mind too. Yeah, so congratulations on going to college now we've scared the life out of you, yeah? And if you're a parent or a grandparent and you're listening to this or watching this, share some of this information with your, with your, with your college students, with your high school students, with your, you know, with your grandkids that are just out of college. It's definitely good information for anybody to know. And if, if they're not listening to it or watching it themselves, then maybe, you know, maybe we can share it via you, you know, as, as their trusted parent or grandparent or teacher or whoever. Yeah, you know.

Jeff Matevish  22:49  
And we have a lot more information on K through 12 on our website too, so make sure you check that out.

Drew Thomas  22:54  
Yeah, yeah, uh, link in the bio, link in the bio, link in the bio, or link in the comments, depending on what you're watching this on or listening to this on, it's the there's a link somewhere, yeah, just you will make sure it's out there. Yep. Cool. All right, hey, happy school year.

Jeff Matevish  23:10  
Happy school year. Yeah, all right. Bye Drew.

Jeff Matevish  23:17  
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