Wednesday, October 15, 2014
96th year • Issue 9
Money Mule
Scammers can target UT students through RocketJobs
Samantha Rhodes / IC
Many University of Toledo students receive scam emails through their Rocket email. The scams offer easy money. By Amanda Pitrof News Editor
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Why we joined the sexual assault awareness initiative
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OPINION / 3 » Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919
INSIDE
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UT Food Pantry open to students in need
The best medicine Dr. Roger Kruse has spent the last 33 years as a team doctor for UT athletics. Sports / 5 »
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“We need books to inspire us, to challenge our way of thinking, to take us to faraway places and give us experiences that we never would have had otherwise.” Jordan Budrevich We read, we imagine, we dream Opinion / 3 »
Halloween Ball celebrates the autumn season UT’s Ballroom Dance Society will host their first-ever Halloween Ball and will take place Oct. 18 from 8-11:30 p.m. in the Ingman Room in the Student Union. Community / 6 »
Joe Heidenescher / IC
Members of the Toledo area cut the ribbon for the new UT Student Food Pantry on Oct. 12. The crop walk raises money to feed people in the Toledo area and the food pantry on campus this year to raise awareness about college student hunger.
It’s simple — take a check, usually from outside the country, and deposit it in your bank account. Then, withdraw the cash and wire it to your “employer” after you’ve taken a cut. But the trick is that the check you just deposited is either fake or stolen. That cut you received for such easy work has made you a criminal. You’ve just become a money mule. And you’re one How do they of thousands of people this steal your happens to every day — including on the University of money? Toledo’s campus. Real check It might sound easy to • Scammer sends the recognize, but a UT stucheck dent who wished to remain • You take your peranonymous was almost centage out taken in while looking for a • Either you mail the part-time job on RocketJobs. rest, or you buy products and ship them overseas, She said she received several where they are sold on emails with job offers that just sites like Ebay did not sound quite right, so • Usually used when she ignored them. But after an laundering dirty money employment dry spell, she went Artificial check back through her Rocket email • Scammer sends the account and reached out to the check least fishy offer she could find. • You take your per“He had gotten my résumécentage out from RocketJobs, and so that • You mail the rest where you are told to seemed like the most legit out • The check bounces, of all of them,” she said. but the bank has cashed The scammer’s responding it through your account, email claimed he was overseas so someone else gets on a business trip, and wanted your money the student to run some errands for him while he was away, including shopping and bill payments. Immediately, alarm bells went off in her head. “You’re not going to send money to someone that you’ve never met without a background check or anything like that,” she said. “But again I’m going, ‘Well, okay he offered basically $15 an hour to do his stuff. And again, it’s really good money and came through the school.’” The scammer sent her a check and told her to put it in her own account, and said there would be directions on what to do with the money later. She received a $2,200 check and some texts that asked her to deposit the money immediately. Instead of throwing in the towel, she decided to be extra careful. She went to a bank, told the manger her story, and opened a separate account for the transaction. See Money mule / 4 »
Safety Regulations
Worker safety protocol violated at UT
By Amanda Pitrof and Emily Johnson News Editor and Associate News Editor
Industrial Power Systems was issued a citation Oct. 7 for one willful and one serious safety violation for work done this past summer on the University of Toledo campus, with a proposed $75,000 in fines. Two of the company’s employees were exposed to cave-in hazards while putting in steam and chill water piping for the construction of the Recreation Center on Main Campus. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began the inspection Aug. 6, 2014, after a compliance officer observed the work-
ers in an unprotected, 10-feet-deep trench, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Labor. OSHA’s safety regulations state that protections against cave-ins are needed in all excavations made 5 feet or deeper. There were no protective systems in place to prevent trench collapse, which the investigation found to be a willful violation of standards. The serious violation charge was for not giving workers a way to exit the trench, like providing a ladder. “A willful violation is one committed with intentional disregard for the law’s
requirements, or with plain indifference to worker safety and health,” according to the news release. “… A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.” According to Rhonda Burke, U.S. Department of Labor Deputy Director for Public Affairs, the inspection was initiated by the National Emphasis Program for Trenching. Burke said that it is not a requirement of See Safety / 4 »
Note-taking
Flashnotes deal could mean more money for students, but a bad deal for professors By Torrie Jadlocki Staff Reporter
Are we likeable? Students discuss the impact of digital socialization. “Men, Women & Children,” will be in theatres Oct. 17 that discusses the impact of the Internet. Community / 6 »
A business deal with Flashnotes.com has students making up to $5,000 a semester and University of Toledo professors concerned about their intellectual property rights. UT entered into a business deal with Flashnotes in July 2014. The online service provides a marketplace for students to buy and sell notes, study guides and flashcards for courses. According to Associate Provost Kelly Moore, this partnership was reached in hopes of being useful to students with accessibility needs. A student attends class, takes notes on their professor’s lectures, and uploads their notes to the Flashnotes website. From that point, the Office of Student Disability Services will see how much a student made on Flashnotes. Through this office, students can earn up to $100 a semester as a note-taker, according to Toni Howard from the Office of Student Disability Services. Students cannot double-dip and be paid by
both Flashnotes and UT after they cross UT’s $100 limit. Once that limit is reached, students’ compensation comes exclusively from Flashnotes users.
How much can you make? Minimum: $100 No matter how many hours you pull, the UT Office of Student Disability Services will pay $100 for volunteer note-taking. Maximum: $1,000+ According to Flashnotes account coordinator Maria Kennedy, students earn about $31 an hour, which can equal “over $5,000 a semester” for some.
In comparison, websites such as Flashnotes are promising students “an average of $31 per hour,” according to Flashnotes account coordinator Maria Kennedy. “The top student sellers across the nation are racking in over $5,000 a semester,” she said in an email. Despite UT’s partnership with Flashnotes, many faculty members are concerned about where their materials fit into this partnership.
“The question is,” Moore said, “what is our relationship with Flashnotes, and how does it protect professors’ intellectual rights in their lectures, lecture materials, that kind of thing.” The regulation of these websites is a concern of many of the faculty members. “One of the biggest problems is that there seems to be no regulation,” said Faculty Senate President Karen Hoblet. “Anyone can purchase notes anywhere.” Kennedy said this service is more regulated than other services. “Professors are worried about their own lecture notes which they post online for students to download,” said communication professor Jacqueline Layng, “then students are selling these notes on the site so they feel like their work is being stolen and the students are receiving compensation but not the professors who created the lecture notes.” Several of these websites are able to be accessed from students across the country. “I actually got a lovely email recently from a student at the University of Minnesota thanking me for how well my class notes were that See Flashnotes / 4 »