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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio)— The Boston University Police Department sent a warning to students after scammers pretending to be Chinese government officials stole $175,000 from two Boston University students on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In both cases, the students received phone calls from unknown individuals claiming to be an official with the Chinese government. The individual accused the students of committing crimes and told them they needed to wire money to an overseas location to resolve the issue.
In the incident on Wednesday, the student reportedly participated in a video call with individuals in "official looking uniforms." The scammers also were reportedly able to replicate the actual caller IDs of Embassy telephone numbers.
The incident on Tuesday led to a student wiring $25,000 to the scammers while the incident on Wednesday saw the student wire $150,000 in installments. Both students went to BUPD after they had wired the money.
The statement from Boston University said there were two other cases of students falling victim to scams on campus this month, with one student sending $900 to a scammer claiming to be from Amazon. The other student was given $2,800 from a scammer pretending to work for Walmart and was told to wire $2,500 in money orders and keep the remaining money as compensation.
BUPD urged students and staff to be vigilant about scams and provided a list of resources for anyone who may think they are involved in a fraud situation.
"Some schemes are designed to capitalize on a fear of not cooperating with government authorities and many seem to target the Asian community," BUPD said in the statement. "We remind students that they should not enter into any financial transactions with unknown people online."
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