Overview 

Scammers are constantly looking for new ways to trick unsuspecting victims. Individuals must remain vigilant to protect themselves from these schemes, which can be challenging to detect and disguised as job or internship opportunities.

Any email asking for information, such as your username, password, bank account, social security number, or gift card, is a potential scam. Additionally, any email offering up job opportunities without an interview process, or asking for unusual payment methods, should be treated with caution.

The university has two email domains, one for students and the other for employees. It is crucial to pay attention to the domain the email is coming from and the content of the email. An employee will never email about job offers or internships from the student email domain.

Gift card scams are also quite appealing. Please do not purchase any gift cards and give the number to anyone via email request or text message. They are scamming you, and there is no recourse to recover these funds. If you receive an email for a job offer, please reach out to the Career Connections team via phone at 561-237-7286 to confirm the legitimacy of the offer before providing any personal information.

Change of banking information of a current vendor that the university does business with is another scam that we are seeing.  If part of your job responsibilities are to work with vendors and pay them for services, then most likely you are involved with paying them either via credit card or an expenditure and purchase order.  And you are most likely involved in sending or receiving emails with attachments where banking information is provided.  98 times out of 100,  businesses never change their banking information.  It is very very rare!  When a vendor sends an email stating something like "we recently transitioned from check and credit card payments to ACH/wire transfers for all payments moving forward. Please find the updated ACH/wire payment details attached to this email. Kindly update your records to reflect this new payment method for all future transactions."  This is a red flag that something may not be right. 

How to identify these scams?

• No legitimate job would ever ask for your login information/credentials
• Communication with individuals not listed on the university’s campus directory
• The person communicating with you via email or text is listed on the organization's website; however, the email address does not match the university's domain name, @lynn.edu.
• The person/organization requests your bank account information to deposit large sums of money into your account.
• The person/organization sends you checks or money and asks you to buy gift cards in exchange. 
• There is little or no interview process.
• There is no face-to-face (virtual or otherwise) communication.
• The process is rushed, or the person/organization asks you to rush.
• There are spelling errors in the organization’s information.
• The opportunity sounds too good to be true.
• The person/organization/vendor sends you an email stating that their banking information has changed and any new payments should be sent to this new bank account information

What to do? 

If you receive an unsolicited email about a job or internship opportunity, or if you come across a job or internship that seems too good to be true, please notify the Career and Alumni Connections office at 561-237-7286. If you are worried that you may be the victim of a scam, notify your bank immediately and alert Campus Safety at 561-237-7226. 

If you receive a change of banking information email do the following:

• Review the email domain that the email came from.  Make sure it looks correct. 
• Do you have a telephone number that you can call the company on the phone?  Don't rely on telephone numbers in signatures of emails and don't reply to the email asking for a telephone number to call to verify if its legit.  Most often times the person sending the email has compromised the email account of the vendor that you are working with and will misdirect you to call them instead of the real vendor you are expecting to be talking to.  
• Escalate to your supervisor and the Controller of the university for assistance if further help and verification is needed.