{"id":521,"date":"2021-03-05T12:17:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T20:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/?p=521"},"modified":"2021-03-05T13:55:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T21:55:49","slug":"tutor-scam-cheque-overpayment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/2021\/03\/05\/tutor-scam-cheque-overpayment\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutor Scam &#8211; Cheque Overpayment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A student recently reported a variation of a cheque <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Overpayment_scam\">overpayment scam<\/a> involving an advertisement seeking a tutor for a high school student.\u00a0 This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.berkeleyparentsnetwork.org\/recommend\/tutors\/scam\">tutor scam<\/a> began with an innocent-looking email to the department, which was forwarded to interested students.<\/p>\n<p>When the student emailed the supposed parent, the response seemed fairly believable but already contained signs of the typical scam.\u00a0 The short-term nature and the involvement of a nanny, while plausible, are scam characteristics.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-523\" src=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam1-highlighted-300x211.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"653\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam1-highlighted-300x211.png 300w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam1-highlighted.png 481w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Next the scammer asked for some personal information, and indicated payment would be made in advance.\u00a0 Both of these are additional warning signs of the scam.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-524\" src=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam2-highlighted-300x238.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"632\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam2-highlighted-300x238.png 300w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam2-highlighted.png 535w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 632px) 100vw, 632px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Finally, the scammer indicated the cheque would have more than the agreed-upon fee due to some extenuating circumstance, and that the student\/tutor would be expected to give the additional money to someone else (the nanny, in this case).<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-525\" src=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam3-highlighted-300x275.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"644\" height=\"590\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam3-highlighted-300x275.png 300w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2021\/03\/TutorScam3-highlighted.png 484w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 644px) 100vw, 644px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Thankfully the student realized this was a scam and reported it to their department.\u00a0 Victims of these scams can lose thousands of dollars when the cheques eventually bounce.<\/p>\n<p>If you are a UVic student and have seen these scams, report them to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvic.ca\/systems\/about\/contact\/index.php\">Computer Help Desk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A student recently reported a variation of a cheque overpayment scam involving an advertisement seeking a tutor for a high school student.\u00a0 This tutor scam began with an innocent-looking email to the department, which was forwarded to interested students. When the student emailed the supposed parent, the response seemed fairly believable but already contained signs &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/2021\/03\/05\/tutor-scam-cheque-overpayment\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tutor Scam &#8211; Cheque Overpayment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}