College students often fallen easy prey to scams. And by scam, I don’t mean the whole system of going into debt for a marginally useful degree (jury’s still out on that one…). Students are increasingly finding themselves the victims of phishing schemes, identity theft, credit card fraud and other scams that can be devastating to a financial fledgling. The problem is that college students are inordinately trusting, optimistic and desperate – qualities that are deepened when the cards are down across the global economy. This trifecta of vulnerability is easily exploited by the unscrupulous and the pain ripples outward from there, affecting the parents, the school, banks, the student body and even the credit industry. While the government does its best to reign in the scammers, for now, it’s up to the individauls to remain vigilant. Here are a few tips that will help.

Don’t Trust the Internet

The younger generations spend much more time on the Internet and are accordingly more trusting of what they find there. True, that’s painting it a bit broadly – today’s students are by far more tech savvy than preceding generations – but the scammers are getting more sophistiated, too. While universities do their best to filter out spam, many unauthorized e-mails do get through. And when they land in the inbox of your .edu address, there is the presumption that it’s been sanctioned by the school. That’s not always true. If you get an e-mail offering you a scholarship you can’t remember applying for or some other opportunity to make money for college, take the extra step and call your school’s financial aid office to confirm that it’s legit. Chances are, it won’t be. Getting financial aid for college is highly competitive and typically requires students to go above and beyond – write essays, have outstanding grades, apply – and it’s unlikely that a credible scholarship opportunity will just wind up unsolicited in your mailbox.

Beware of Wireless Networks

At any given spot within 100 feet of a college campus, you’ll see scores of wireless networks pop up. It’s common practice to go through and look for one that’s unsecured in order to steal a few minutes of broadband to finish up that assignment or check your Facebook between classes. But beware. You may feel like you’re the one being sneaky by piggybacking on your neighbor’s wireless network, but there’s also the chance that you’re the one being grifted. Data that’s transmitted over wireless networks can easily be intercepted and mined for sensitive data, such as passwords, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. If you need to log on to pay your credit card bill, wait until you get back home and do so through a wired or secured connection.

When using public WiFi in a coffee shop, avoid clicking “Remember Me” on shared computers and look for websites that begin with “https://”. The “S” stands for secure, and while it’s not bulletproof, it’s better than nothing. For more on wireless security to prevent credit card theft, read our article on wardriving.

Don’t Spill the Beans on Social Networks

Facebook has spots for you to fill in your telephone number, your address, your e-mail address, date of birth and your hometown and high school. Using this information and perhaps one or two other key details, a hacker can easily get access to your online banking accounts or open up credit accounts under your name. Don’t believe it? Just ask former Governor Sarah Palin.

Consider some of the common security questions before disclosing personal details in your blogs and Facebook surveys. You know those fun little notes that ask you to disclose “25 Facts About Me That You Would Never Have Guessed!”? Yeah, why not keep them that way. Oftentimes, you’re basically giving away the answers to the security questions that your online banking site uses to reset your password. So keep the name of your first pet, your first boyfriend, the street you grew up on, your mother’s maiden name and the name of your childhood best friend to yourself.

Don’t Let the School Put Your Social Security Number on Records

Who thought this was a good idea?: Give incoming freshmen a little plastic card with their picture and Social Security number on it and then send them out on to frat row to get wasted, black out and wake up having no idea where their wallet, their dignity or their left shoe is. Meanwhile, some grad student grading papers gets up from her table to use the restroom and leaves a stack of 120 exams unattended in the coffee shop, each one with the student’s name, grade and Social Security number conveniently bubbled in. Not a good idea.

More colleges are moving away from using Social Security numbers on exams, IDs and applications, but if they haven’t yet, ask them to. Put pressure on the authorities or refuse to use anything but a uniquely generated school ID (not one that’s just your last name and last 4 digits of your SSN). Make a ruckus. That’s what college is for.

Nuke Your Old Hard Drives

When you need to hawk some of your stuff for booze or tuition money, don’t sell your hard drive along with your crappy Dell. The default quick format doesn’t delete your old data – it just gives other programs free reign to write over it. So, until someone fills up your hard drive to capacity, they can easily undelete your web cache, your letters to the IRS and anything else that may have sensitive data. Take time to securely erase your hard drive or simply rip it out and put it in a hard drive enclosure and use it as a spare drive. If you simply must get rid of it, bring it down to the shop and have someone drill a hole through it (seriously) or render it unreadable in some other drastic fashion. The last thing you want is someone going through your old computer files and finding old nude pictures of your ex-girlfriend, the embarrassing fan fiction you wrote as a sophomore or worse, your passwords and credit card information.

Check Your Credit Report

Lastly, remember to keep tabs on your credit report. You may have not done this before, since you probably didn’t have any credit history to speak of. But since it’s free and easy, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t check your credit report for fishy items once every four months or so. Need help? here are five places to get your credit report for free:

• Equifax
• TransUnion
• Experian
• Smartcredit
• GoFreeCredit

If you find anything untowards on your credit report, then investigate it and rectify it immediately. Read the FTC’s Guide to Identity Theft to find out what to do.

That ought to keep you out of the most common traps for students. Until February, you’ll still have to dodge the wily tactics of credit card companies on campus, but the government’s working on that one, too. Had an encounter with a phisher of scammer in college? Let us know what to watch out for in the comments.

Photo by brownin39

Related posts:

1. Credit Card Theft: How to Avoid the Next Albert Gonzalez
2. The College Student’s Guide to Credit Cards
3. New Rules for February: College Students Won’t Be Receiving Any Valentines from Credit Card Companies in 2010
4. Calling Bulls*t on the Credit Industry
5. 7 Ways Students Ruin Their Credit