COVID-19-related scams targeting college students

While unemployment is stabilizing, it’s still very high. And there is one segment of the job market we forget who really relies on summer jobs – that’s students. 

Summer work is how many young people pay for college expenses: apartments, meals, books and more. 

COVID-19-related scams are targeting them. It’s such a concern that Florida’s attorney general has issued a warning. So it’s only reasonable to expect that Georgia college students will get hit up, too.  If it’s working there, it’s working here. 

It starts with an email from what you think is your college, university or technical school, and it ends with .EDU.  That’s the lure. It’s a job offer, or you think anyway, for a campus job you can do at home while quarantined. 

This is appealing as jobs at home are hard to come by right now. 

The email sender poses as someone from your college or university. They want to get into your accounts and drain them. Some students have been issued counterfeit checks they are asked to cash then send part of it back. Scam. 

If you get an email with a school job offer, research the company that claims connection. Look for a website and contact information. Did the site just get formed? That’s a red flag. Typos and grammatical errors are a dead give-away that it’s a scam. And finally, if you suspect it is - call Georgia’s Consumer Protection division and report it.