The FBI’s Atlanta office is warning of a scam targeting international students who are legally in the United States.
This comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement canceled — and then said it would restore — hundreds of student visas across the country.
According to a May 13 FBI release, the scammers impersonate agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as a way to build credibility.
Scammers have also used fictitious names that sound like government agencies, impersonate U.S. universities and send links to fake websites.
From there, the perpetrators tell the students that they are in violation of their student visas. Victims are then threatened with prosecution or deportation if they do not pay a fine that the scammers claim is used to process immigration paperwork, pay university registration fees or pay a legal fee.
The agency says students from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan have primarily been targeted thus far.
The FBI offered the following tips for students to protect themselves from scams:
- Beware of unsolicited communication from someone purporting to be from the government, especially by phone.
- Always verify that you are speaking with a government official by hanging up and contacting the office through a third-party obtained number (e.g. web search for legitimate contact information), then asking for the agent or department you were speaking with.
- Verify that the website visited is a secure or encrypted site, as government websites are.
- Repeating top-level domains in a URL is a common scam to make a website appear legitimate (e.g. “gov.org” in a URL is a spoof of the .gov top-level domain).
- Do not provide information on the phone until you verify the identity of the caller.
- If you believe you are the target of a government impersonation scam targeting foreign students, gather all relevant documentation and contact diplomatic security at your home country’s embassy, the FBI, or Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the Department of State.
- Do not give anyone a two-factor authentication code used to log-in to an account or device.
- Do not download files to your phone or computer unless you have verified the source.
The FBI requests that the public report any fraudulent or suspicious activities to www.ic3.gov.
