ID Theft Awareness Important on Campus

When dropping their kids off at college, parents are quick to ask about campus safety. Unfortunately, the threat of identity theft is often overlooked—despite the fact college students can be easy targets for criminals looking to profit from someone else’s personal information.

Phil Banker was a senior at University of North Texas when he let the possibility of buying a discounted textbook online cloud his judgment. He entered his debit card information to make the purchase from a web site he didn’t completely trust. “I took a chance, and I got burned for it,” he told The Star-Telegram.

That textbook wasn’t so cheap when Banker later saw $1,919 withdrawn from his checking account from the Baltimore area, a place he had never visited.

Students can’t be blamed for trying to find deals on expensive textbooks. However, identity theft and scam investigators told The Star-Telegram they hear stories like Banker’s all the time. Students often fall prey to work-from-home and Internet sales scams involving wiring or sending money elsewhere. “Because they’re on the Internet so often…[they] fall victim to a lot of the Internet fraud scams,” said Denise Owens, Comerica Bank’s Texas fraud and identity theft investigator.

A little cynicism usually helps, said Owens. “If it seems too good to be true, it is.”

On campus, students are unlikely to turn away the convenience of a student identification card that they can also swipe to pay for meals, books or other activities. Yet combining student ID cards with debit card capabilities is not a good idea, said Mary Monahan, managing partner at financial services researcher Javelin Strategy & Research.

Universities only recently moved away from using Social Security numbers as student identifiers. Now, a new risk is posed by schools inking deals with bank and credit card companies to issue cards that do double duty, Monahan said.

Thieves could access students’ bank accounts if they hack into some school computer systems, or if students lose their cards. “It basically paints a target on the backs of our college students,” said Lawrence Wilson, president of the Plano-based ID Theft Victims Support Group of North America, in The Star-Telegram.


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