Again this year, the international students at UNM and throughout the U.S. are being contacted by individuals claiming they work for U.S. government entities like the Internal Revenue Service, said Linda Melville, associate director for international student and scholar services for the Global Education Office.
“The most recent reports involve individuals pretending to be IRS agents telling students that they have reported the student to Homeland Security and the Police Department. Students have also been told that if they don’t wire money immediately, they will be in trouble,” she said in an email to students.
Melville advised students to be aware of scammers as no U.S. government agency will ever require them to wire money immediately to any entity, she said.
“They will also never require you to provide your Social Security number over the phone, nor will they call you to inform you that you will be arrested,” Melville said. “These agencies must follow due process laws and protocols and cannot require you to do anything like this without prior contact in person.”
Melville warned, that according to some reports, the individuals pretending to be government officials have passport numbers, birth dates, names and Social Security numbers that are accurate, she said.
“To protect your information, do not give any information on the phone and be sure that you log out and erase the login trail when using any public computer,” she said.
Hafiz Ahmad Yar, an education and linguistics graduate student, said he was contacted by scammers, but since he was warned by GEO officials last semester, he did not pay any heed to the callers.
“As soon as I was contacted, I knew it was a scam. One of my friends also received a call, but even he knew it was a scam,” Yar said.
The scammers told Yar that all UNM students were automatically selected for a lottery, that he had won through a lucky draw and that he would get the money once he deposited a fee, he said.
“I always follow instructions issued by UNMPD and GEO and that saved me,” he said.
According to a Daily Lobo report, last semester an international student, who asked not to be named, was convinced to give up $280 to someone who claimed to be from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and at least two other people were contacted by the same person.
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The scammer had the students’ personal information, including their passport number, the day they entered the United States, their email address and their date of birth, lending credibility, according to the report.
The phone number on the victim’s caller ID matched that of USCIS’s customer service number, so the victim was willing to hand over the money, which he was told to do by purchasing a prepaid debit card and then providing the scammer with the card number, the victim had said.
Advisory from GEO
Any students who receive this type of call should immediately report it to iadvisor@unm.edu.
A Street Smart workshop will be held on Friday, Feb. 20 from 12 to 1:30 p.m. and will cover basic physical and cyber safety issues for students. Students can RSVP by emailing iadvisor@unm.edu with “Workshop” in the subject line.
Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
