Scammed Out of College Tuition
Donation protected
Hello, my name is Michael and I was SCAMMED…
No not by a Nigerian prince who only needed a few thousand so he could cover his pay to regain his crown. And no not by pills that will supposedly add 4 inches to some part of my body in only 4 short weeks…
I GOT SCAMMED BY THE FBI AND THE IRS… Or at least I thought that’s who they were.
Before the story though, here is a little bit about myself. I am 22 years old and I am currently a Graduate student at Auburn University studying Industrial and Systems Engineering. I graduated with Honors from Auburn last May with my Bachelors in the same subject.
If you think that you are too smart to be scammed you are wrong! I graduated Summa Cum Lade with Honors from one of the Nation’s best engineering schools. IT CAN HAPPEN
PLEASE HELP; this is the money that was going to put me through graduate school now in the hands of some Middle Eastern scam agency. (it was later revealed that they were from Afghanistan)
Here’s how the story goes:
I woke up around 10am so I could eat breakfast shower and shave before my 12:30 statistics class. As I was just about to hop in the shower I got a phone call from the Huntsville, AL area. I know a lot of people from that area so I thought it was probably someone calling about class. When I picked up the phone I heard someone say “Hello? Is this Michael _____ I am calling on behalf of the FBI to notify you that the IRS has charged you on 3 counts of tax fraud/evasion?” in a thick foreign accent. But not wanting to be racist I didn’t press the issue.
I’m thinking to myself well crap now I’m being audited and I owe the Government money in taxes. So I said “what are the charges for? I haven’t had a job to pay taxes on in a while.”
The voice then said “we know you are a student and therefore haven’t had a job Michael, I see that you are a Graduate student planning on graduating in May of 2017 and that you have already received your bachelors in Industrial and Systems Engineering last May 2016… Have you received any scholarships, grants, or financial aid?” I then informed the person that I had a presidential scholarship from the university and a corporate scholarship. He then said “did you report that to the IRS?”
“No,” I said, “we pay people to do all our tax stuff for us.”
He said “well that’s probably why you are being audited; you didn’t pay your educational taxes.”
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At this point I believed that the person was really from the government, not only because he was calling from the Huntsville office of the FBI, but also because he knew all my educational information, where I live, and even my home address. It isn’t an understatement to say that I was freaking out at this point. I don’t have many liquid assets that I can use to pay the government with. Later on in the conversation I was told that I owed $1900 is “student taxes.” This didn’t strike me as odd though because any transfer of money is a taxable event and I received something like $40,000 of scholarship money total. So a ~4% tax seemed reasonable.
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I said to him “I need to contact my parents” because they will surely know what to do. However I was stopped and the voice said “do you know why we are calling you? It’s because your name is on everything and this is your problem, not your parents.” He then said to me “you have 2 options… you can either go to the IRS branch in Columbus, GA (about an hour away) or you can fight the charges in court and if you lose you are liable for the fees and court payment which is around $25,000. And you must decide right now.” I then told the person that I didn’t have $1900 that I would have to make some calls and go to other places to get the money. That’s when he said to me “you don’t have to pay the full amount now. You just have to pay what you can then the IRS will set up a payment plan for the rest.”
I paced my apartment for what seemed like an hour trying to get more time to decide. He told me that this is the last day before my warrant goes into effect and was basically just being high pressure. I caved and agreed to go to the IRS in Columbus to straighten it all out.
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This is the part of the story I look back on and think how ignorant I was to not see that I was being scammed. The reason I didn’t notice at the time though was because not only did they know about my education, but they were also blocking all cellular data from entering my phone. This included texts, other phone calls, as well as internet data. The only person I could communicate with was the person claiming to be from the FBI. In my head this seemed like something that only the government could do, so I was further strengthened in my belief that this was real.
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The man on the phone informed me that the IRS doesn’t take money from persons so what I have to do is to buy a “voucher” card from a company who has a contract with the government. All of this seemed fishy to me but for reasons stated earlier I didn’t resist. There were a variety of card options, but the first one I found was iTunes… I was told to buy the custom amount card and fill them to their max ($500)… I bought 3.
My call was then transferred to another individual who was supposedly going to “remove my warrant.” After reading him the 16 digit code on the back of each card he said he would remove the warrant. A couple minutes went by and he came back on the line and said “I could not remove the warrant; it seems that you have to pay the full amount. With all of your paperwork fees you need $500 more dollars and then you will be clear.”
I said to him “I don’t have $500 more dollars. The first person said that I could pay $1500 now and then the rest over an installment.” He told me that they were mistaken and that the rule is “payed in full.”
I went back into BestBuy to purchase another $500 gift card with my credit card this time. I then went back to my car, read the code and then he checked to remove my warrant. Again he said that he couldn’t remove it. “It seems,” he said “that the $1900 charge was only for 1 of the charges, the others are $2500 and $1200 respectively.”
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At this point I wasn’t even thinking clearly… I was more concerned with the class I was missing than trying to piece together if this is real or not. I won’t explain the next part in so much detail because it is pretty much the same, I had to go around and buy these cards using my credit card. My bank canceled my card TWICE, and I actually called them to verify the transactions and for them to release the hold on my card… FML
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Before I could read out the codes on the cards totaling $1200 I was stopped by the Opelika police and they informed me of what’s going on, and how this has been going on lately. As soon as they confirmed that it was a scam all of the pieces fell together and I instantly felt so stupid I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry or to fly to Afghanistan and hunt this guy down like Liam Neeson.
The real worst part is that because I was actually the one using the card it can’t be counted as fraud or a disputable purchase by my bank so I am stuck with the total $5700.
It almost doesn’t seem real… that’s more money than I ever spent on anything gone in just a few hours…. That’s more than an entire semester’s tuition, and I still have to pay for one more before I can be done with school.
So again, any help is greatly appreciated.
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If I can get the money I’m looking for I will give each of the top 3 donators a $400 iTunes gift card.
THANKS, AND GOD BLESS
No not by a Nigerian prince who only needed a few thousand so he could cover his pay to regain his crown. And no not by pills that will supposedly add 4 inches to some part of my body in only 4 short weeks…
I GOT SCAMMED BY THE FBI AND THE IRS… Or at least I thought that’s who they were.
Before the story though, here is a little bit about myself. I am 22 years old and I am currently a Graduate student at Auburn University studying Industrial and Systems Engineering. I graduated with Honors from Auburn last May with my Bachelors in the same subject.
If you think that you are too smart to be scammed you are wrong! I graduated Summa Cum Lade with Honors from one of the Nation’s best engineering schools. IT CAN HAPPEN
PLEASE HELP; this is the money that was going to put me through graduate school now in the hands of some Middle Eastern scam agency. (it was later revealed that they were from Afghanistan)
Here’s how the story goes:
I woke up around 10am so I could eat breakfast shower and shave before my 12:30 statistics class. As I was just about to hop in the shower I got a phone call from the Huntsville, AL area. I know a lot of people from that area so I thought it was probably someone calling about class. When I picked up the phone I heard someone say “Hello? Is this Michael _____ I am calling on behalf of the FBI to notify you that the IRS has charged you on 3 counts of tax fraud/evasion?” in a thick foreign accent. But not wanting to be racist I didn’t press the issue.
I’m thinking to myself well crap now I’m being audited and I owe the Government money in taxes. So I said “what are the charges for? I haven’t had a job to pay taxes on in a while.”
The voice then said “we know you are a student and therefore haven’t had a job Michael, I see that you are a Graduate student planning on graduating in May of 2017 and that you have already received your bachelors in Industrial and Systems Engineering last May 2016… Have you received any scholarships, grants, or financial aid?” I then informed the person that I had a presidential scholarship from the university and a corporate scholarship. He then said “did you report that to the IRS?”
“No,” I said, “we pay people to do all our tax stuff for us.”
He said “well that’s probably why you are being audited; you didn’t pay your educational taxes.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
At this point I believed that the person was really from the government, not only because he was calling from the Huntsville office of the FBI, but also because he knew all my educational information, where I live, and even my home address. It isn’t an understatement to say that I was freaking out at this point. I don’t have many liquid assets that I can use to pay the government with. Later on in the conversation I was told that I owed $1900 is “student taxes.” This didn’t strike me as odd though because any transfer of money is a taxable event and I received something like $40,000 of scholarship money total. So a ~4% tax seemed reasonable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I said to him “I need to contact my parents” because they will surely know what to do. However I was stopped and the voice said “do you know why we are calling you? It’s because your name is on everything and this is your problem, not your parents.” He then said to me “you have 2 options… you can either go to the IRS branch in Columbus, GA (about an hour away) or you can fight the charges in court and if you lose you are liable for the fees and court payment which is around $25,000. And you must decide right now.” I then told the person that I didn’t have $1900 that I would have to make some calls and go to other places to get the money. That’s when he said to me “you don’t have to pay the full amount now. You just have to pay what you can then the IRS will set up a payment plan for the rest.”
I paced my apartment for what seemed like an hour trying to get more time to decide. He told me that this is the last day before my warrant goes into effect and was basically just being high pressure. I caved and agreed to go to the IRS in Columbus to straighten it all out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the part of the story I look back on and think how ignorant I was to not see that I was being scammed. The reason I didn’t notice at the time though was because not only did they know about my education, but they were also blocking all cellular data from entering my phone. This included texts, other phone calls, as well as internet data. The only person I could communicate with was the person claiming to be from the FBI. In my head this seemed like something that only the government could do, so I was further strengthened in my belief that this was real.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The man on the phone informed me that the IRS doesn’t take money from persons so what I have to do is to buy a “voucher” card from a company who has a contract with the government. All of this seemed fishy to me but for reasons stated earlier I didn’t resist. There were a variety of card options, but the first one I found was iTunes… I was told to buy the custom amount card and fill them to their max ($500)… I bought 3.
My call was then transferred to another individual who was supposedly going to “remove my warrant.” After reading him the 16 digit code on the back of each card he said he would remove the warrant. A couple minutes went by and he came back on the line and said “I could not remove the warrant; it seems that you have to pay the full amount. With all of your paperwork fees you need $500 more dollars and then you will be clear.”
I said to him “I don’t have $500 more dollars. The first person said that I could pay $1500 now and then the rest over an installment.” He told me that they were mistaken and that the rule is “payed in full.”
I went back into BestBuy to purchase another $500 gift card with my credit card this time. I then went back to my car, read the code and then he checked to remove my warrant. Again he said that he couldn’t remove it. “It seems,” he said “that the $1900 charge was only for 1 of the charges, the others are $2500 and $1200 respectively.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
At this point I wasn’t even thinking clearly… I was more concerned with the class I was missing than trying to piece together if this is real or not. I won’t explain the next part in so much detail because it is pretty much the same, I had to go around and buy these cards using my credit card. My bank canceled my card TWICE, and I actually called them to verify the transactions and for them to release the hold on my card… FML
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Before I could read out the codes on the cards totaling $1200 I was stopped by the Opelika police and they informed me of what’s going on, and how this has been going on lately. As soon as they confirmed that it was a scam all of the pieces fell together and I instantly felt so stupid I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry or to fly to Afghanistan and hunt this guy down like Liam Neeson.
The real worst part is that because I was actually the one using the card it can’t be counted as fraud or a disputable purchase by my bank so I am stuck with the total $5700.
It almost doesn’t seem real… that’s more money than I ever spent on anything gone in just a few hours…. That’s more than an entire semester’s tuition, and I still have to pay for one more before I can be done with school.
So again, any help is greatly appreciated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If I can get the money I’m looking for I will give each of the top 3 donators a $400 iTunes gift card.
THANKS, AND GOD BLESS
Organizer
Michael McClay
Organizer
Auburn, AL
