BUPD warns students of email scam

For college students, the thought of finding a job before graduation can be daunting. Many students use the Internet to search for possible careers, but what students may not realize is that career searching online leaves them vulnerable to various scams.

Boston University students on the job hunt may have noticed a recent barrage of emails flooding their BU webmail inboxes from a company called “LinkShare Corporation,” promising students work.

The LinkShare emails tell students that they have been hired to act as “a middleman whose job it is to receive business checks via Federal Express from a buyer and cash them using his or her own checking account,” according to a report published by the BU Police Department  on its website.

Students are instructed to deposit the check into their bank account, keep 10 percent of the check as their “pay” and subsequently forward the remaining money to a third party using the money transferring website MoneyGram.com.

BUPD Det. Lieutenant Peter Didomenica said that the checks sent to students are forged, and if deposited will be detected as forgeries by banks.

“What happens is your bank is required to credit your account the amount of any check you deposit,” Didomenica said. “If you deposit a forged check into your bank account, you have to honor the amount of that check.”

Even though the checks are recognized as forgeries by banks, “if they are returned by the issuing [payor] bank to your banking institution as forgeries you will be liable for the money,” according to the report.

The email account used to lure students into the scam uses the pseudonym of the “LinkShare Corporation,” which is the name of an existing ecommerce company, but the email address used in the scam is a Hotmail.com account.

“They impersonated the account of this business through Hotmail.com,” Didomenica said. “This makes it difficult to track down the user.”

LinkShare Corporation proper “provides ecommerce businesses with a wide range of online marketing services including search marketing, lead generation and affiliate marketing,” according to the company’s website.

Scott Allen, a spokesman for LinkShare Corporation, said the company was made aware of the scam a few weeks ago, and has started looking into the misrepresentation of the company name.

“We have received numerous complaints related to the misrepresentation and illegal use of the LinkShare brand,” Allen said in an email. “Our legal department is currently looking into the matter.”

Allen said that representatives from LinkShare were disappointed to hear that the company name was being used to swindle money from college students.

BUPD is participating in a continuing search for the person responsible for the LinkShare scam, Didomenica said.

“We have reached out to various state intelligence centers,” DiDomenica said. “We’re going to reach out to federal investigators to see if they want to follow up on this.”

While the investigation is ongoing, it has been difficult for investigators to pinpoint where the scam emails are coming from because the information on the forged checks, such as the account and routing numbers, are identical to that which appears on authentic checks issued by LinkShare Corporation, Didomenica said.