Humber Polytechnic’s North campus has issued a safety alert for the students.
The notice issued on Jan. 10, 2025, advises students to be on the lookout for a group of people that might pressure them into buying high-value items.
Director of Humber’s Department of Public Safety Rob Kilfoyle said the groups of people have been going around campus pretending to be tech people who have extra items that they want to sell for cash.
He said in one such case a student who was scammed $1,500 because they succumbed to their pressure.
The student was told they were at Humber to install some new, high-end projectors and had some spare ones on them which they wanted to re-sell, Kilfoyle said. They asked the student to hold on to the projector until they finished their job on campus, he said.
Kilfoyle said they asked for cash as security and said they would return the security deposit back plus some extra cash.
The student was gullible enough to agree to their demands once they started pressurizing him and gave them the cash after which he never saw them again, he said.
Kilfoyle said the people have been known to be using “high-pressure tactics” that tend to make students fall for it.
He said this is not the first time this situation has arisen on campus.
Last term students reported a total of three incidents at Humber’s North and Lakeshore campus, but they were handled, Kilfoyle said. Security interrupted the incidents and the men fled the scenes, he said.
Kilfoyle said none of the cases have been violent.
He said they have the vehicle number and other identification of the persons involved in the fraud form last term, but these might not be the same group of people that are on campus this term.
The Department of Public Safety put up posters around the campus at the entrance of each building to alert students about the fraudsters and also sent an alert notification on the students’ Guardian application.
However, students around the campus do not feel very informed about the situation.
Harjot Kaur, from Early Childhood Education at Humber, said she “highly appreciates” the security team at Humber but believes they can be better at spreading awareness.
“I didn’t see a lot of posters about this case, I had no idea any such thing was going on,” she said.
Kaur says sending such important alerts to students’ direct emails would be a “great help” to make sure students are getting to know about this fraud.
Kilfoyle said it is one of those “buyer beware situations” as it does not count as a crime because the students are willingly agreeing to this.
“That said, it is still fraud in our opinion, like not legal fraud but still fraud against students and we’re asking the students to be aware,” Kilfolye said. “One of our challenges is trying to communicate with so many people.”
He has asked anyone who comes across this case to report it to the Department of Public Safety.
Students can call their operations centre which is available 24/7 at 416-675-8500 or use their Guardian app and press the button that says call security or the report a tip feature on the same app.
