By Lucas Southwell
Student Swindled On Campus With A Counterfeit $50 Bill
On Nov. 4 at 7:21 p.m. at Raleigh J. Finkelstein Hall a Grand Rapids Community College student was tricked into giving a man $40 in change in exchange for a $50 counterfeit bill.
The man approached the student while they were in front of Lake Michigan Credit Union on the 4th floor of RJF. According to the police report he was a white male in his 20s to early 30s and was wearing a bright construction hard hat, goggles of some sort, and a neon shirt with a gray sweater. He asked the student if they could give him change for a $50 bill and the student agreed to do so. The student withdrew money from a nearby ATM as they did not have any cash on hand, and the man agreed to only take $40 in change due to the denominations distributed by the ATM.
The man left immediately following the exchange which is when the student noticed that the bill was not real and had a replica label attached to it stating that the note was not legal tender. The student reported the incident to the campus police who confiscated the fake bill as evidence.
Attempted Extortion Turns Out To Be A Phishing Scam
On Nov. 5 a student reported that her student email had been hacked and that the hackers were now attempting to get her to pay $700 in exchange for them not releasing a sensitive video they had supposedly obtained.
The student reportedly received an email that looked to be sent from herself saying that they had hacked her email 11 months ago and had been monitoring her with her computer’s front facing camera and now wanted $700 in exchange for them not sending a compromising video they supposedly took of her to everyone in her contact list. The student was advised to delete the email, not click on anything in the email, and to not send anyone money.
After checking with the Grand Rapids Community College Information Technology department the police discovered that the student’s email address had not actually been compromised but that the email was simply made to look like it had been sent from the student’s email address and that this was one of several recently reported attempted phishing scams targeted towards GRCC students. The IT department sent out an email to students on Nov. 8 warning them about phishing scams and informing them on how not to get fooled by them.
Student Loses His Possibly Stolen Phone At Ford Fieldhouse
At approximately 11 a.m. on Nov. 6. a student accidently left their phone in the Intro to Athletic Training room, (number 115) in the Ford Fieldhouse, and failed to locate it after returning a short time later.
According to the police report the student was encouraged to report the incident as a possible theft, but made it clear that he did not want to accuse anyone. The police attempted to call the phone but just got an automated voice saying the phone’s voice message system had not been set up. The student was also unable to locate it using his synchronized cellular watch and told police that he was unsure of the cost of the phone and case.
Multiple Reports of Aggressive Panhandling And Trespassing
There were multiple reported incidents of aggressive panhandling and trespassing on campus throughout the week with several of the incidents seeming to be committed by the same suspect. Campus Police sent out an email to students and staff on Nov. 5 to warn them about aggressive panhandlers.
