An online scam has in recent weeks victimized some Tufts students looking to sublet their off-campus residences, according to reports on the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) and TuftsLife.com Web sites.
The scam involved a supposed Tufts graduate student from London named Sarah Simpson who responded to a sublet advertisement posted on both Tuftslife and ResLife's online Off-Campus Housing Resource Center Web site saying that she wanted to rent the victim's apartment.
"What happens is they send a check for more than was asked (in this case, $2,950 instead of $683.33)," the victim said in the original e-mail reporting the scam to ResLife and Tuftslife. "Then after you receive it, they say they sent too much, please send the difference back. So you send the difference back, thinking that the check cleared. Then the bank calls, says the big check they sent was a fraud and the money you sent back is gone."
TuftsLife was first notified about the scam on March 24, as was ResLife, according to Chief Operating Officer of TuftsLife Mike Vastola, who is also a technical manager for the Daily.
Vastola noted that while TuftsLife has never seen a scam like this before, as soon as the he put up a post on the Tuftslife blog warning students about it, another person e-mailed TuftsLife corroborating the story, saying that they too were victims of what appeared to be the same scam.
Vastola explained that it was uncertain whether the scammer was preying only on sublet advertisements on Tuftslife or on other Web sites' listings as well.
"It seems like it's happened before," Vastola said. "It's not clear to me whether this is exclusively a TuftsLife thing or whether this is one person who was also scamming on CraigsList[.com] and ResLife."
Craigslist's list of recognized scams includes a supposed e-mail scam that sounds similar to the TuftsLife scam.
The scam described on Craigslist involves a foreigner purchasing a bicycle from a Craigslist user for $800 but then sending a check for $4,000 and asking the user to wire transfer the difference back to the buyer via Western Union.
The TuftsLife and Craigslist scams both meet the three main criteria Craigslist provides for recognizing scams, including "inquiry from someone … in another country," usage of wire transfers and cashier's checks, and the refusal to meet face-to-face prior to completing the transaction.
Sophomore Ethan Maccoby, who has been looking to sublet his residence for the summer, noted that in his experience, such housing scams are not uncommon.
"I have been using Tuftslife and even Craigslist to advertise for summer sublets, and one needs to be very careful on both sites," he said. "I had a friend whose subletters turned out to be Belarus vagabonds and paid nothing at the end of the summer."
In light of the scam, TuftsLife has taken some measures to warn its users about the dangers of the scam and possible scams in the future.
"We posted warnings on our blog, and now when you post an announcement, you are shown an alert which explains the scam so that everyone is informed," Vastola said. "We made it a point that everyone knows about this so no one else gets victimized."
According to Vastola, TuftsLife also e-mailed all users who posted announcements in the past month to ensure that all were made aware of the scam.
ResLife Director Yolanda King noted that while ResLife has not taken any action to respond specifically to this scam, it already adopts general precautions to protect students against scammers.
"When we have been listing on the [off-campus housing Web site], we do try and screen out any listings that seem suspect," King said in an e-mail to the Daily.
Vastola explained that the scam is difficult to track and impossible for a Web site such as TuftsLife to screen because the scammer is responding to postings by Tufts students instead of originating the posts.
The best way for Tufts students to protect against the scam, according to Vastola, is to ensure that those responding to their advertisements and posts are replying from Tufts e-mail addresses, as Tufts students are far easier to track and less likely to be scammers.
Maccoby echoed these warnings about the need to take precautions.
"The best thing to do is to have their check clear in advance for at least one month's rent," he said. "Ensure that they are a Tufts student or otherwise meet with them during the day with a few of your friends to make sure they are legit."
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The individuals who first reported the scam to TuftsLife and ResLife could not be contacted for this article.
