Police Warn About 'Professor' Scam Targeting College Students

RYE, NY — Rye police are warning students and parents to be on alert for an age-old con with a new twist making the rounds.

"We have been made aware of a scam targeting college students," Rye police said in an alert issued on social media. "Please have a conversation with your children in regards to this type of scam. We want to remind everyone, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

According to the FTC, the grift relies on making students believe they are interacting with a trusted faculty member. The scam begins when the con artist, posing as a professor, sends an email. The email appears legitimate, with a spoofed college domain name (and format like yourname@collegename.edu)

The scammer offers the student a part-time job, like personal assistant or dog walker, but this is where trust in the academic authority figure is abused by the swindlers.

The scammer sends the student a check with instructions to deposit it, but to send some of the money to someone else, and keep the rest as payment.

The bank, of course, eventually realizes the check is fake and deducts the original check amount from the victim's account. But if the victim has already sent a portion of that money to someone else, that money is gone forever.

Police say it is important to never use money from a check to send gift cards, money orders, or wire money to anyone. It's always a scam. Once the money is sent or put on a gift card with a PIN provided, it's like giving the scammers cash and it's nearly impossible to get that money back.