Financial Aid and Scholarship Scams

To:                University Community

From:             Maureen Amos, Director of Financial Aid

Date:              March 29, 2012

Re:                 Warning: Financial Aid and Scholarship Scams

If you have to pay money to get money, it's probably a scam.

Recently, an NEIU student was contacted, about a grant opportunity, by an individual who represented himself as being from http://www.grants.gov/. The grant representatives were not calling from grants.gov, but from a Washington, DC number. The caller assured the student that the grant opportunity was a legitimate award and that the student had been selected to receive the grant. However, in order to participate in the grant opportunity, the student needed to wire $310. The NEIU student was asked for his checking account information. The Northeastern Illinois University Financial Aid Office or the U.S. Department of Education would never ask for checking account numbers or credit card numbers as payment for any financial assistance.

Every year, several hundred thousand students and parents are defrauded by scholarship scams. The victims of these scams lose more than $100 million annually. Scam operations often imitate legitimate government agencies, grant-giving foundations, education lenders and scholarship matching services, using official-sounding names containing words like "National," "Federal," "Foundation," or "Administration."

FinAid.org has some valuable tips to help identify such scholarship scams and how to protect yourself from scholarship scams. Please visit their site for ‘Common Scams’. http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/scams.phtml. 

Report Financial Aid or Scholarship Scams to:

US Department of Education Office of the Inspector General
Inspector General's Hotline 1-800-MIS-USED or 1-202-205-5400
State Attorney General's Office
Chicago Office: 1-800-386-5438
http://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/consumers/scholars.html