Students should be wary of scammers on campus after Humber College's Department of Public Safety issued an alert warning about a con pressuring students into trading cash for electronics
Security officials say students are approached at both the North and Lakeshore campuses.
Rob Kilfoyle, the Director of Public Safety and Emergency Management at Humber, said the suspects use high-pressure sales tactics to convince students they are getting a good deal on an electronic device such as a TV by asking for $1,000, with the promise of a higher resale value.
“Unfortunately, in this particular instance, the student did lose about $1,000. So it gave over
money to these individuals. And of course, the TV is not worth anything,” said Kilfoyle.
“The students are usually alone, they social engineer their way sort of into gaining their trust,” said
Kilfoyle. “In some cases, like they've targeted international students.”
People who are new to the country who don't necessarily know what the laws are, what the rules are, what the customs,” he said.
Kilfoyle said people walking and staring at their phones while not paying attention to their surroundings are prime targets for this type of scam.
It is not the first time for this type of scam on campus. There have been different versions of it.
“We had a rash of them last year as well, where they'll actually drive a student to their bank, to the bank machine, and get them to take the money out of the bank machine,” said Kilfoyle
Another situation where a driver with a fake taxi sign pulls over, and a passenger gets out beside a student, pretending to panic because their card does not work.
"And the person will be like, 'Ah, geez, my bank card's not working. Would you mind, if I gave you cash, would you mind using your bank card to pay for my taxi?” Kilfoyle said, "When they take the card, they steal the card, hand back a fake card. And then now they have access to that person's bank account.
“And by all means, you know, something sounds too good to be true. It usually is, he said.
Kilfoyle said Humber keeps an eye on them.
“We have video surveillance of them,” Kilfoyle said.
“They often look like students themselves. We have the Humber Guardian app, so at Humber we have that, and there's a number of safety features built into that app,” he said.
Adnan Salam, Assistant Manager, Security Operations at Humber, said students should call police if they are a victim of a scam and get in touch with campus security.
“For the student's safety, we connect them with some resources on and off campus. For example, on campus we have care coordinators; they're not only for academic purposes only, but they can help them navigate whatever issues they're going through on campus,” he said.
“We do multiple things to make our community aware, so that they don't get victimized by these scams,” said Salam
For more information, contact the Humber Public Safety 24/7 line at 416-675-8500, the emergency line at 416-675-4008, or the emergency email at emergency.management@humber.ca.
