[Wsssc] FW: [ctcLink_POC] Financial Aid Fraudulent Account Information

[Joe Holliday]

Good morning, WSSSC. See below, FYI. This is also being distributed to Student Services Councils.

Joe

[Compass]
Joe Holliday
Director, Student Services
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
jholliday at sbctc.edu<mailto:jholliday at sbctc.edu>* o: 360-704-4334 * f: 360-704-4418
sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> * Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> * Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>

SBCTC Vision:

"Leading with racial equity, our colleges maximize student potential and transform lives within a culture of belonging that advances racial, social, and economic justice in service to our diverse communities."


From: Choi Halladay <challaday at sbctc.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 4, 2022 4:30 PM
To: Joe Holliday <jholliday at sbctc.edu>; Yokiko Hayashi-Saguil <yhayashi-saguil at sbctc.edu>
Subject: Fw: [ctcLink_POC] Financial Aid Fraudulent Account Information

FYI
________________________________
From: ctcLink_POC <ctclink_poc-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:ctclink_poc-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> on behalf of Dani Bundy via ctcLink_POC <ctclink_poc at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:ctclink_poc at lists.ctc.edu>>
Sent: Friday, March 4, 2022 3:40 PM
To: ctclink_poc at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:ctclink_poc at lists.ctc.edu> <ctclink_poc at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:ctclink_poc at lists.ctc.edu>>
Cc: Grant Rodeheaver <grodeheaver at sbctc.edu<mailto:grodeheaver at sbctc.edu>>
Subject: [ctcLink_POC] Financial Aid Fraudulent Account Information


Good afternoon,



The Washington State Auditor and Department of Education (DOE) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is conducting an active investigation of a sophisticated, multi-state fraud ring. Colleges nationwide are seeing patterns of fake student admissions and financial aid applications.



Last week, myself. Dani Bundy, SBCTC Customer Support; Sandy Main, SBCTC Application Services; and Johnathan Rider, Infrastructure Services/Security, met with the State Auditor and DOE OIG to discuss the matter.

Below are some of the items discussed and that colleges should be aware of.

Preserve evidence

To support the state and federal criminal investigation and preserve evidence, student accounts identified as fraudulent should remain in their current state to capture the history and status of the account up to the point of fraudulent identification.

All prior and current applications, enrollment and/or financial aid records should not be removed. Colleges should take the necessary action to ensure financial aid/refunds are not disbursed.

What to watch for
* Clark College was alerted by Bank Mobile that some of their students had bank accounts set up with other colleges.
* Edmonds eLearning staff observed patterns in online classes that led them to report some potentially fraudulent student accounts to SBCTC.

It's a complex case, because as soon as a pattern is identified, the fraudsters change tactics, but patterns may include:
* Many applications with very similar information coming through within minutes of each other: similar email addresses (Hotmail/Outlook), all for the same quarter, similar program/plan (e.g. AA-transfer & Business-transfer).
* When colleges have tried emailing the purported students, they haven't responded.

Resources

If fraudulent accounts are identified by the institution, they must follow the first four steps in the ctcLink Quick Reference Guide, Reporting Fraudulent Accounts to SBCTC<https://ctclinkreferencecenter.ctclink.us/m/79544/l/1404796-reporting-fraudulent-accounts-to-sbctc>, prior to submitting a ticket.

Available queries to support tracking

The following queries can be used to find enrollment/awards at more than one college:
* CTC_FA_CONCURRENT_ENROLLMENT, QCS_SF_CONCURR_ENROLLMNT (term activation)
* CTC_FA_MULTI_INSTITUTION_AWARD

To find and filter out duplicate emails and/or addresses:
* QCS_FA_ISIR_DATA



We will keep folks apprised of updates if there changes to these situations.

Thank you,

Dani Bundy
ctcLink PeopleSoft Customer Support Director
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
dbundy at sbctc.edu<mailto:dbundy at sbctc.edu> * c: 360-619-8960 o: 360-704-1028 * sbctc.edu
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