To our student community,
Every year, UC Berkeley students are unfortunately scammed out of thousands of dollars via fake employment offers. Our campus Information Security team offers the following tips to avoid these scams.
Why are employment scams a serious issue?
In 2023 alone, victims lost more than $35,000, at an average loss of $2,515 each, and these numbers only account for what has been reported to the Information Security Office. In addition to losing money, victims of fraud may suffer negative impacts related to class attendance, grades, mental health, and well-being. See examples of past employment scams.
Tips on How to Protect Yourself
-
Beware of unsolicited emails, phone calls, texts, or even social media DMs (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter) messages offering internship or employment opportunities.
-
Don’t trust unsolicited job offers without verifying their legitimacy. Contact the person offering the job via their contact info in the campus directory or a berkeley.edu departmental website. Campus jobs always require employment paperwork, and new hires are not asked to pay out of pocket for anything.
-
Do not purchase equipment or send money from unknown prospective employers. Be suspicious of potential employers who ask you to deposit checks and send money, or who want you to make purchases of any kind.
-
Avoid clicking links in suspicious emails and do not provide private information. Do not click on links within any email that you did not expect, and never provide your personal or financial information via unsolicited emails or forms.
How do students lose money?
These fraudulent job offers appear to come from professors or campus entities, using either spoofed email addresses or non-Berkeley email accounts. The email will contain a subject line like “Berkeley Students Part-time Job Position,” “STUDENT INTERNSHIP,“ or “VIRTUAL JOB OPPORTUNITIES.” View an example of a fraudulent email.
Once you reply, the criminals often move the conversation away from email, asking to be texted on a mobile number that does not match the professor’s directory entry, or having the student share their non-Berkeley email or mobile number (which makes it difficult to collect evidence).
Sometimes, victims are asked to order equipment or other items and are told they will receive a check to cover the cost. The scammers will often put a lot of pressure on the victim to get this done quickly. If repayment is made, the check will turn out to be fake and the victim loses the money they spent. Victims may also incur overdraft fees, late fees, or have their bank account closed.
Get Help
If you have been the victim of a scam, please file a report with UCPD and report any suspicious email to phishing@berkeley.edu or call 510-664-9000 (option 4). Report all suspicious messages to help others avoid being scammed.
Additional Resources
We encourage every student at UC Berkeley to take an active role in their online security. The Information Security Office offers these other helpful resources:
-
Cybersecurity in a Nutshell, is a handbook just for students covering all the basics. It is also available in CalCentral for easy access.
-
Education & Awareness library has dozens of resources available to help you learn how to protect yourself covering topics from avoiding identity theft, to ransomware, and much more.
We thank you for your attention to this matter and hope your semester is off to a great start!
Warm regards,
Oliver O’Reilly, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (he/him/his)
Stephen C. Sutton, Ed. D., Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs (he/him/his)
This message was sent to all students.