My 18 year old was scammed out of 3K on her first day as intern

[Anonymous]

Wow, I would be very worried about her future.

[Anonymous]

OP's refusal to accept responsibility and blaming her kid is galling.

[Anonymous]

In many industries young adults get scammed. Mine is up to about $30k. It makes me so angry too and I am constantly working with mine to recognize scams.

[Anonymous]

I almost fell for something similar, and I am an intelligent 40-something woman. I was busy, distracted, and the "sender" was someone who would make slightly odd requests. I had no reason to think my company wouldn't reimburse me. Eventually I realized and felt so stupid, but this happens and the scammers are getting more and more clever.

[Anonymous]

Also, what makes you think the internship is legit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So this was not a real internship. The company is bogus.

Yeah this title is bs. There was no company or internship!

[Anonymous]

What day was the first day?
How much does this "internship" pay?

[Anonymous]

So she used her own computer and her on debit card to scam herself thinking this was a real internship? SMH.

[Anonymous]

Funny that you’re angry at your kid for not recognizing the scam when you also didn’t recognize the SCAM INTERNSHIP!!

[Anonymous]

I was the victim of an attempted scam and didn’t even realize it. I’m the treasurer for our school’s PTO and got an email from the PTO president about an overdue invoice. Fortunately we have a laborious multi-level approval process and I told her I’d need to run the invoice through the levels and that we were fine with paying late fees if that’s what was needed. I didn’t even clue in when the “president” said they company only took PayPal or Zelle. We only pay by check, so that was never going to happen.

It wasn’t until about 24 hours later that a bell went off in my head and I realized that it wasn’t real and someone was trying to phish me. And I work for a cybersecurity company! I get trained on this sort of thing all the time!! These people are good at what they do. Young people need to learn to be suspicious about their interactions online. These people can take in even experienced people.

[Anonymous]

OP, there was no internship nor was this a legitimate company.

Why would a company hire a high school student as a "researcher."

I'd encourage you to have your daughter get jobs at brick and mortar places for awhile. She needs to learn about physically working a job and getting a paycheck at the end of the week for labor she worked.

She needs to understand that she gets compensated for work. She does not pay the company $3000 for a job or internship.

[Anonymous]

I really have to believe that a scam would have to be much much more sophisticated before my 18 year old would fall for it. There is no way she would ever pay out $3000 of her own money, without, at the very least, coming to me or her father. The fact that many of you, as adults, are saying you would fall for it, is disturbing. And I am not the most highly intelligent person. Is this one of those high IQ vs street smarts kind of things?

[Anonymous]

I think people are misunderstanding the problem. I have received these emails through my work email several times over the years. The scammer who is outside my company and probably not even in the Us sets up an email that appears to be the name of the head of my company. Outlook will show the email as coming from Bob Smith. But when you click on the name and look at the email address, it says something random that is clearly not bob smith’s email. The first time I got one, I had a whole back and forth with the guy because I was on my iPhone and it was hard to see the actual email address. It was a weird exchange and so I didn’t buy the cards but the person was actually moderately convincing.

So I guess add this to the list of things we need to teach our teens before they go out into the world. If it seems like you are being asked t do something weird, don’t just do it. Check in with someone (even if it’s just your parent).

She can report this to the company and maybe their cyber insurance will cover her, but I don’t think this is the company’s fault. It doesn’t have anything to do with her using her own computer or downloading outlook. She was scammed by a third party. It wasn’t reasonable for her to think they were going to ask a research intern to buy 3K worth of gift cards for other employees. That was not what she was hired for. I’m really sorry she got scammed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really have to believe that a scam would have to be much much more sophisticated before my 18 year old would fall for it. There is no way she would ever pay out $3000 of her own money, without, at the very least, coming to me or her father. The fact that many of you, as adults, are saying you would fall for it, is disturbing. And I am not the most highly intelligent person. Is this one of those high IQ vs street smarts kind of things?

Because most PPs who replied in this vein actually described more subtle situations. In OP's daughter's case, the actual job probably does not exist. They stole 3K on the first day and will disappear. It smelled bad from the start, and OP should have warned her. The others had phishing emails at their legitimate place of work, using familiar channels. That can get really confusing.

I have one ADHD/ASD rule-compliant young adult, and my biggest fear, ever since he was little, has always been that he'll get roped into something criminal and be used as the fall guy because the higher-ups see him as an easy victim. Scams are less impactful - they don't send you to prison, even if you lose your money. So I've spent a significant amount of time in his life teaching him ethics and morals, and when you have to stand up to your friends/bosses, in addition to paying attention to scams and frauds.

Here's the Washington Post scam exercise. I took it, and apparently I'm a "Cautious Capybara"!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/identify-scam-quiz-zelle-email-text/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f005

[Anonymous]

Even if the codes were redeemed, is there any chance of calling the bank to get the money back due to fraud?

OP don't let this be the end of it. Have your daughter go through the reporting process. Read up together on common scams and identity fraud. Consider doing things like freezing her credit and registering her accounts on IRS and SSA now while she's young so people can't do it in her name. I'm very concerned that she also gave them access into her laptop or filled out phony on boarding paperwork with her SSN and driver's license. It will be painful going through these steps but a great learning experience.