By Uy Pham
The Huntington Beach Union High School District (HBUHSD) issued a districtwide warning in late January to advise students and staff about the rise in scam emails promising students fraudulent job opportunities. According to the HBUHSD IT Department, the emails often impersonate and utilize the emails of students and staff to send the emails out to large groups of students.
Although email scams are not a new problem to the district, Assistant Principal of Curriculum and Instruction Brian Clark said the warning was issued due to a recent rise in the number of scam emails sent.
“Our district put something out back in October or November,” Clark said. “So, it’s been an ongoing thing. It’s not anything new, it’s just that the quantity now seems to be ramped up.”
First, students are greeted by an email promising a chance to earn $200-300 weekly if they simply fill out a job application. The specific details of the job opportunity may vary depending on the email, but the result often ends with a fraudulent check scam.
After filling out the job application, students may be asked for personal information including mailing addresses, phone numbers and banking information. An interviewer soon texts the student on their personal phone number, notifying the student that they have been accepted for the job after a short interview.
“I did click on the survey and filled it out. It asked me questions about what bank I used, my name and last name, address, phone number, what school I went to,” junior Alison Archila said. “Then, after I filled it out they sent me a text to my phone saying I got accepted, and they told me I was going to be a personal assistant and that my first task was to make a donation.”
The interviewer instructs the students to deposit a check — a fraudulent one — into their bank account and send part of the funds to another account. However, the check bounces, leaving the students financially responsible for the personal money they just sent to another account.
“After the initial text, they were rushing to get my response which made me feel uncomfortable, and they assigned students the task of transferring money on their behalf,” junior Kristyn Duong said. “I tried to do what they told me, but thankfully my bank did not allow me to deposit.”
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that over $28 million is lost to fake check scams annually.
At Fountain Valley High School, students have reported that emails have come from a wide range of district staff, including teachers, guidance counselors and even Clark himself. With the scams utilizing the email addresses of staff members that students often trust on campus, the emails can present an enticing offer.
Senior Madison Dinh, whose email address sent out one of these scam messages, believes her account was compromised due to a form she filled out.
“Over winter break, Clark sent an email saying something along the lines of ‘Action to keep HBUHSD active.’ That email led to a Google Form that asked me for the email and password for my school account,” Dinh said. “I was so surprised because it came from an assistant principal, and I thought it was just an account checkup.”
Adding to the convincing nature of the emails, students also reported that they found the companies’ pages on job networking sites such as LinkedIn.
However, Barons also reported several indications that the emails were fraudulent. The emails were sent out in mass to students districtwide sharing close proximity in the alphabet. Furthermore, the emails came from staff members all across the district, including names of staff at other school sites but unfamiliar to Fountain Valley.
“When receiving the email, it seemed too good to be true. I still had a little belief that it could be real, but it never felt right that a random job opportunity from a random teacher would pop up like that,” senior Zachary Groff said.
Clark and HBUHSD have several recommendations for students to protect themselves from email scams. Students should enable two-factor authentication for their emails, but if they are suspicious of an email, they should verify it firsthand and in person with the sender.
“I just got one this morning, it was a staff newsletter that was supposed to be from Dr. Ogata, our superintendent,” Clark said. “The scammers put her name on there to make it seem legit … It’s so hard to understand what’s a scam or not even as adults and professionals.”
Students are advised to avoid clicking on the email as just a click may provide scammers with access to compromise an email address.
While HBUHSD considers locking school email addresses to only allow emails to be sent within the district network as a measure to increase security, students are encouraged to forward any further scam emails to the district’s IT department for further investigation.
“It’s super tough when the messages come from another student or even a staff member, and you want to trust those people because they’re adults on our campus,” Clark said. “It’s always best to take a second look and reach out to the person that is contacting you.”
