The increased number of reports received by the FBI regarding online work-from-home scams has prompted the agency to issue a warning to college students in the United States
Scams of this kind are nothing new, but recently it has been observed that students have also become the focus of scammers who send them messages in their college emails , offering the opportunity to make easy money by doing some fictitious work from home. At some point, they are even asked to move part of the amount they received in their bank account to another
What students don't know is that the money they receive for working from home has been obtained through illegal means and they run the risk of serious charges, or at the very least having their bank account terminated due to fraudulent activity.
The FBI described the scam method, saying that the student is asked to open an account to receive the payment amount from the supposed employer.
After hacking into a company's computers, the scammers switch the victim's direct deposit information with the student's. So when the victim's employer makes the payroll deposit, the money will end up in the student's account. The next step in the scam is to tell the student to keep some of the money as payment for their work, withdraw the rest, and wire it to a bank account they give them.
This way, the trail of money is lost and when the fraud is detected, the student takes the entire blame, because he participates in and facilitates the theft of the victim's payroll.
The FBI advises students to forward such emails to their respective IT at their schools, but they can also file a complaint with the Internet Crimes Commission at www.IC3.gov.
