UCSC police warn of scam offering work assistance, internships to students

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION) The UC Santa Cruz Police Department and ITS Information Security are warning of a scam offering part time work assistance or internships.

Police said victims get an email at their ucsc.edu email address encouraging them to apply for a job, and it appears to be coming from the Career Center, student services department or a professor.

After replying, the "employer" hires you without an interview and sends a check with instructions to buy gift cards, money orders, prepaid debit cards or other supplies they say you need for the job.

Police said the checks are fake, and any money sent to the "employer" is gone. Victims also have to face consequences of depositing a fake check with the bank.

To avoid becoming the victim of an employment scam, police suggest researching a company before taking a job, calling the company to confirm employment, watching out for emails with many typos and grammatical errors, never sending funds to someone you have not met and not providing bank information until legitimacy is confirmed.

Police said forgeries may come from a generic email address, such as @gmail.com or @yahoo.com. Other signs of a forgery include asking for personal information, asking you to make purchases on their behalf and bad grammar or sentence structure.

If you receive one of these emails, police say you should mark it as spam and not respond.