{"id":12160,"date":"2025-07-31T10:46:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/?page_id=12160"},"modified":"2025-08-07T15:27:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:27:49","slug":"common-scam-methods","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/current-students\/scams\/common-scam-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Scam Methods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>CGE wants to help you avoid\u202fbeing the victim of a\u202f scam.\u202fEncountering a\u202fscam is unfortunately something that is\u202fexperienced by nearly everyone in the U.S., including international visitors.<br><br>Be aware of these common scams:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Immigration scams<\/strong>:&nbsp;Someone claiming to be a U.S. immigration official or an official from another government.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Home country scams<\/strong>: Someone calls and tells you that they have some damaging information about your family in your home country. They speak in your native language and claim that they will help your family if you send money overseas. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/contact-us\/field-offices\/washingtondc\/news\/fbi-washington-field-office-warns-of-scam-targeting-chinese-communities-in-the-us\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/contact-us\/field-offices\/washingtondc\/news\/fbi-washington-field-office-warns-of-scam-targeting-chinese-communities-in-the-us\">See this FBI warning<\/a><\/em>. These seem alarmingly real!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tax scams<\/strong>:&nbsp;Someone claiming to be from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) saying you owe money.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Employment scams<\/strong>:&nbsp;Someone claiming to find a job for you if you pay them money.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tuition scams<\/strong>: Someone claiming to provide a tuition discount if you use their service.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Apartment rental scams<\/strong>: Someone claiming to want to rent your apartment, with no actual interest in doing so.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Relationship scams<\/strong>: Someone pretending to be in a dating relationship through text or phone call, who wants money to meet in person.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Kidnapping scams<\/strong>: Someone calls your parents, grandparents, or a loved one and claims that they have kidnapped you and want ransom money in exchange for your life.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Social Security Number (SSN) scams<\/strong>: Someone calls and tells you that your SSN has been compromised. They ask you to provide personal information in order to help you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You may find this USCIS page on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uscis.gov\/avoid-scams\/common-scams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">common scams<\/a>&nbsp;helpful as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phishing Emails<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scammers may also try to get your sensitive information through email. This is called\u202fphishing. Phishing is \u201cthe activity of defrauding an online account holder of financial information by posing as a legitimate company.\u201d&nbsp;<strong>Do not send sensitive information by email or text by clicking on a fake link in the email or text message.<\/strong><br><br>As a reminder, if you receive a suspicious email, or know an email is a phishing attempt, your best course of action is to<strong>\u202fforward the email as an attachment to Bates IT&nbsp;<\/strong>at\u202f <a href=\"helpdesk@bates.edu\">helpdesk@bates.edu<\/a>. With the email highlighted in your inbox or open, press Ctrl + Alt + F. This will open a new email with the suspicious email as an attachment. Forward this to\u202f <a href=\"helpdesk@bates.edu\">helpdesk@bates.edu<\/a><br><br>*If you pay scammer, you lose the money. If you provide them sensitive information, you may become the victim of identity theft.<br><br><strong>Cyber Attacks Targeting Bates Duo Accounts<\/strong><br><br>Don&#8217;t let phishing attempts compromise your Bates account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul start=\"1\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If you receive a\u202f Duo\u202f&#8221;push&#8221; login request when you aren\u2019t expecting one \u2014 especially if you&#8217;re not actively logging in to an application or system \u2014 do not approve it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Review your<a href=\"https:\/\/bates.teamdynamix.com\/TDClient\/75\/Portal\/KB\/ArticleDet?ID=590\">\u202fDuo\u202fsettings<\/a>\u202fto make sure you recognize all the enrolled devices.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Report any suspicious activity to the Help Desk (<a href=\"mailto:helpdesk@bates.edu\">helpdesk@bates.edu<\/a>\u202for (207) 786-8222) with the\u202f<strong>date and time.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Before logging in to a campus service, always double-check website URLs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you have questions about\u202f <a href=\"http:\/\/trk.tamu.edu\/trk\/click?ref=ztotana6v_3-qn4ope-30-bce3x330b9x019345&amp;\">Duo<\/a>, are unsure if a message is legitimate or identify a phishing attempt, email\u202f<a href=\"mailto:helpdesk@bates.edu\">helpdesk@bates.edu<\/a>\u202for call (207) 786-8222.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CGE wants to help you avoid\u202fbeing the victim of a\u202f scam.\u202fEncountering a\u202fscam&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":924,"featured_media":0,"parent":12156,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-12160","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","with-sidebar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12160"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12287,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12160\/revisions\/12287"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/global-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}