Fraudulent Job Offers Target Students
The Emory Police Department (EPD) has seen a surge in fraudulent job offers in the past two weeks, according to EPD Records Manager Ed Shoemaker. At least 20 fraudulent offers were reported to EPD or the Emory Career Center. At least one student is known to have accepted a fake job offer.
On Jan. 21, a student received an email from a person claiming to be a professor of Health and Human Services from an unnamed university. The person offered the student a job and did not require an interview. The job entailed sending out emails and providing compensation to research participants.
After the student accepted the position, they were told they needed to purchase gift cards to pay the participants, under the pretense they would be reimbursed. The alleged professor asked and obtained the student’s bank login information for the reimbursement procedure. A check was sent to the student, but it bounced.
The student’s bank account was emptied of all funds and no further communications was received from the alleged professor.
The alleged professor went by the shared name of two actual professors, one from Stanford University (Calif.) and another from the University of Sioux Falls (S.D.).
After this report was filed, the career center informed EPD of at least twenty additional fraudulent job offers. EPD interviewed four students who received fraudulent offers and investigations remain underway.
Shoemaker said EPD recommends watching for red flags such as potential employers “not being specific about where they work, unsolicited job offers and jobs that ask you to put up money.” He added that “any job that asks you to put up your own money is bogus; real employers don’t ask you to do that.”
Shoemaker also recommended that students contact EPD if they fall victim to a fake job offer or other types of fraudulent activity because “we have some chance of recovering funds if we know what’s happened, and no chance if we don’t know.”
Prominent COVID-19 Doctor Receives Death Threats
On Jan. 27, a prominent doctor in the public discussion of COVID-19 received threatening emails stating that the sender has a gun and the doctor should cease discussing COVID-19 “or else.” It is currently unclear to what degree the person making the threat has the ability to carry out the threat.
Briarcliff Campus Burglary
On Feb. 4, Building A on the Briarcliff campus was broken into. An exterior glass plate was broken. The cost of repair is estimated to be $2,000. EPD has not yet determined if anything was stolen because the building is large and tedious to search.
This follows similar incidents within the past six to 12 months on the Briarcliff campus. The property is famously used for film and television productions like “Stranger Things.”
Gustavo Borjas (21C) is from Orlando, Florida and was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He is majoring in biophysics and biology. Outside of the Wheel, Borjas is a lab assistant in the Finzi Lab in the physics department and vice president of finance for the Emory chapter of PhiDE Medical Fraternity. He loves obstacle course races, wrestling and hanging out with his dogs.
Gustavo is a great journalist!