Scammers target Chinese University of Washington students

SEATTLE -- A promise of cash back on college tuition seemed too good to pass up, but the University of Washington students who took the bait are now out thousands of dollars each.

Almost every victim in this case is from mainland China. Investigators believe they were targeted by thieves who knew their vulnerabilities, and bet they’d be too embarrassed to come forward.

Many of the victims were initially contacted through an app called WeChat, and learned of a sweet deal that police said ended up being a scam.

“Students were being told if they paid 100 percent of their tuition, that they will get reimbursed 5 percent,” said Maj. Craig Wilson with UW Police. “So they would only need to pay 95 percent of it.”

Additionally, students were told to provide their net ID and password, which the suspects then used to complete the fraud.

“They needed the user ID to go online and make it look as though they made a payment to the university,” said attorney Nelson Lee, who is representing many of the victims free of charge. “Then they could send a sort of email confirmation saying, ‘Hey, payment was made.’"

However, the money never made it to the university. Campus police have confirmed 19 students who had their accounts fraudulently accessed. However, they believe there may be more than 90 victims who lost more than $11,000 each, the average cost for one quarter of tuition for an international student.

All told, that's close to a million dollars.

Lee said there’s a perception the Chinese students come from wealthy families, but “a lot of my clients, this is pretty much everything they had."

No arrests have been made and police have not named any suspects. However, the victims said the suspect is a fellow Chinese immigrant who told the students she could help them, but stole from them instead.

“I feel very bad that Chinese people are taking advantage of other Chinese people here,” said Forest Tian, a student who is assisting many of the victims.

The victims are here on student visas and not paying their tuition could jeopardize their ability to stay in the country. It's unclear if the university will offer any kind of extension or reprieve while the criminal case is sorted out.