Hey everyone! My name is
Mal and I am a senior in Industrial Engineering. I know this blog is supposed
to be fun and informative, but I want to use this opportunity to discuss
something more serious, but also really important to know. When I started college,
I started getting nearly 10 times the number of e-mails per day as I did in
high school. Unfortunately, not all of these e-mails are from people with good
intentions. As newly independent college students, you are now a new target for
all kinds of internet hacks, cons, and scams. I hate to be a Debby Downer, but
I want to give you some tips for protecting yourself in the cyber world.
Passwords:
First, don't use your same
PSU password for any sensitive information, including bank accounts and
healthcare portals. I know it can be hard to memorize a million passwords, but
avoid using your first name, last name or birthday in any of them.
Personal Info:
Be careful about giving out
personal information via phone or e-mail. There have been several times when I
have had to provide my social security number in order to process work
documents. Always confirm that this is necessary and that you are in contact
with the correct person. If you plan to get a job at school, you will need your
social security card or your passport to process your I9 form. Don't carry
these items around in your wallet, and store it in a safe place such as a
locked drawer, or bring it with you for your parents to keep safe next time you
go home.
Job Offers:
Career week is a busy time
for us at Penn State, but sometimes sketchy organizations will use this time to
take advantage of you. Sometimes fake organizations or "companies"
will contact you saying that they have reviewed resume on
"collegeresumes.com" or "collegeinternships.com." (I just
made these ones up, but there are lots of fake websites out there.) If you did
not submit an application to an organization, and they offer you a job without
interviewing, be wary of them. Sometimes they want you to provide your credit
card or bank account number, sometimes they are just fishing for personal
information. Either way, that's obviously a very big red flag. No legitimate
company would ask you to pay them to work for them.
Another thing to keep in
mind: Freshman year, my friend received a phone call from a company she had
never heard of, and they wanted her to meet them at the HUB so that they could
drive her in their car to the interview site. If something like this ever
happens to you, consult an advisor or professor before taking any action and do
your research on the company. It sounds obvious, but don’t get into a car with
a stranger.
People Generally Trying to Convince You to Pay for Worthless
Things:
A few weeks ago, I got an
e-mail from an address titled "Penn State Honor Society." Looks
legit, right? They told me "hey congratulations! You’re accepted into our
prestigious honor society, to join you only have to pay us $50!...blah blah
blah." The e-mail came from an organization called HonorSociety.org. They have a massive database of college students from all over the country and
send out these mass e-mails to make a profit. Don't get me wrong, real honors
societies are a great accomplishment. However, you normally have to go through
a pretty extensive application process to get accepted into an honor society. Seek out those opportunities, but know how to tell the difference between a
real and a fake. Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honor society at PSU) looks great
on your resume; however, a $50 membership to HonorSociety.org not only adds
nothing, but actually makes you look gullible to company recruiters and
faculty.
The IRS is not going to come to your door and arrest you.
Last year, my friend got a
call on her cell phone from a number that was listed as the “State College
Police Department.” (Scammers have the ability to cover their number and make
it show up as any number they want.) They informed her that she owed a couple
thousand dollars in taxes to the IRS and if she did not pay them within 24
hours, they would be sending a police officer to our apartment to arrest her. They told her that if she hung up, they would send a police officer over
immediately. So she stayed on the line and walked down to the bank while they
gave her instructions on how to complete a money transfer. She didn’t even have
all of the money they were claiming she “owed” in her bank account, but she was
in the middle of filling out the paperwork to transfer all of the money she did
have when she realized that something just wasn’t right here. Luckily she
figured it out before anything too bad happened, but it can be a really
stressful situation and unfortunately many students fell for it. See the
article in the link below: http://onwardstate.com/2015/01/26/tax-scam-targeting-international-students/
This is certainly not the
extensive list of potential scams. People are getting more and more creative,
but that just means that we need to be more prepared. I don’t want to scare you
guys or anything before you even get here, but I think it’s really important to
be aware of your personal security and take precautions to protect
yourself. Good luck this fall and I can’t wait to see you all here!
Malorie Feidner is a senior majoring in Industrial Engineering, and is a Mentor for WEPO'15!
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