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volume 131, number 103
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Students mixed up in scam posted on Aggie Job Link Junior loses nearly $2,000, fraudulent job posting removed By MENGSHI SHAO Aggie News Writer
Sarah’s boss requested that she send $1,770 of her own money to a business partner in early October. Sarah did. Her boss provided a money order of $1,870 — $100 for Sarah to keep. Ten days later, Sarah learned that the money was fraudulent. Sarah, a junior transfer student whose real name will be kept confidential for privacy reasons, was a victim of a job scam from the beginning: a well-described job post on Aggie Job Link (AJL). After searching for “in Davis” and “paid position” on AJL, Sarah applied for an office assistant job, which appeared in the top five results. After emailing her cover letter, resume and references to the job poster’s personal email address, she got the job in August before moving to Davis for the school year. “I saw the job on Aggie Job Link, and it paid $150 a week for me to
do the basic office things. [The boss] said she was in Sweden and [that] she was an international consultant,” she said. “She didn’t email me back for a really long time, and I started to look for another job. About a week and a half [later] she told me she was in the hospital and had a heart attack and wanted to meet me in the nearest coffee shop.” Sarah said this made her more sympathetic toward her employer, but the meeting never actually happened. Then Sarah received the money order and instructions to mail off nearly $2,000 from her boss, and learned from her bank that the money was fake. According to Marcie Kirk Holland, project manager at the UC Davis Internship and Career Center (ICC), less than five frauds were posted in AJL in late September and early October of this year. About 10 students were involved in a similar situation, with one actually sending money to the scammer.
Holland said that the job postings themselves do not appear unusual at first. “It does mention taking customer/account payments. That is a standard part of many legitimate jobs. Only fraudulent employers would expect this to be accomplished through an employee's personal bank account,” she said in an email interview. Mary Garcia, officer with the UC Davis Police Department, said types of fraud vary, but all scammers just want a personal signed check in the end. According to Garcia, a common indicator of a fraudulent posting could be a medical emergency, being out of the country or a family emergency. “They often claim themselves as doing international business and avoid [meeting] you in person or [talking] on the phone,” she said. Sarah recalled a similar situation as her “boss” never showed up but only contacted her via
Robert Mondavi Institute debuts Honey and Pollination Center
New campus center joins the Laidlaw Honey Bee Research Facility
email, and emails were often delayed, as if they came from other time zones outside of the country. “I wish there [had] been a disclaimer on the Aggie Job Link because I would assume that everything is legitimate, and your school will protect you and never give you the opportunity [to fall victim to fraud],” Sarah said. Holland also noted that students should be alert, as no employers should ever ask an intern or employee to write a check for a transaction that relates to their company’s operations. Students are encouraged to only communicate with potential employers through AJL, not through personal email addresses, and to keep in mind that employers do not send large sums of money to people that they do not know well. In response to the fraudulent job postings, AJL has posted a notification on its webpage to warn students of fraud that can be associated with writing a check
through a personal account, and it has removed positions of possible fraud from student view in the search results. “We archive fraudulent postings for ICC records,” Holland said. “We will sometimes leave fraudulent postings accessible to students with the term ‘fraudulent posting’ in the position title so that students that refer back to the position while they are completing a resume or cover letter or applying through the AJL system will see the notice.” UC Davis students are not the only victims in these cases. Similar situations have happened throughout the UC system. AJL has begun working with other universities to keep job links clean and free from scams by notifying job link administrators to pull positions that were posted for multiple campuses and label them as “fraudulent.” MENGSHI SHAO can be reached at campus@ theaggie.org.
News iN Brief
Tour the City of Davis Wetlands On Saturday the public is invited to attend a free guided tour of the City of Davis Wetlands from 3 to 5 p.m. Guides from the Yolo Basin Foundation will be on hand to teach the importance of the habitat as well as its importance to seasonal and resident diving ducks. November is when diving ducks such as Buffleheads, Common Goldeneyes and Ruddy Ducks are seen diving underwater to feed. People planning to go on the tour
should meet at the gate in front of the City of Davis’ wastewater treatment plant, east of the Yolo County landfill on Road 28H, a few minutes before 3 p.m. It’s recommended that people bring binoculars, water and a field guide. Most of the tour will be by car, with a few optional short walks. Tours will occur rain or shine. — Claire Tan
Ride to Know group bikes from SF to Sac for Prop. 37 Supporters join together to educate cities about GMOs
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By STEPHANIE B. NGUYEN Aggie News Writer
This past Saturday, entomologists and honey enthusiasts alike came together to celebrate the debut of the Robert Mondavi Institute’s (RMI) Honey and Pollination Center at the “Bounty of Pollination: More Than Just Honey” event. Saturday’s event featured guest speakers, including award-winning cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg who directed and produced The Beauty of Pollination, as well as various demonstrations from the Davis Co-Op and Whole Foods. In addition, guests enjoyed honey tastings. The independent center was approved earlier this year by the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) and aims to promote the use of high-quality honey in the market, to help ensure the sustainability of honey production and to showcase the importance of honey and pollination in California. The center is funded pri-
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marily through donations and grants, with initial seed funding from Whole Foods, CAES, the Department of Entomology, the Office of Research and Z Specialty Food in Woodland. The center differs from the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility in the Department of Entomology, which is a state-supported facility that focuses on honey bee breeding, genetics and native bee biology. “The Laidlaw Honey Bee Research Facility’s focus is honey bees, bee biology, health and related areas,” said Amina Harris, executive director of the Honey and Pollination Center. “Our focus is a bit broader. We bring together beekeepers, researchers, agriculture and the consumer.” Still, the two entities are closely aligned. “[The vision is to] make UC Davis the nation’s leading authority on honey, honey bees and pollination by combining the resources and expertise of RMI and the Laidlaw Honey Bee Research Facility,” RMI Executive Director Clare Hasler-Lewis said in a press release.
Harris believes that the center will have an impact on several levels. “We seek to help build a healthy, sustainable population of beehives to support a vigorous, highquality honey industry in California,” Harris said. “We plan to be proactive in the development of improved labeling — there are few standards in place to define varietal honeys.” In addition, the center hopes to facilitate and support ongoing research of the health effects of honey, royal jelly, pollen and propolis through writing grants since little is known about the health benefits. “The center should serve as a central clearinghouse for inquiries from anyone about honey bees, honey, native bees and bees used in commercial crop pollination,” said Eric Mussen, the extension apiculturist in Agriculture and Natural Resources under the vice president of agriculture, located in Oakland. For more information on the Honey and Pollination Center visit rmi.ucdavis. edu/centers/honey. STEPHANIE B. NGUYEN can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
Forecast If you plan on trick-or-treating this Halloween, good luck (shield yourself from the rain)! Following the stormy Halloween night and Thursday, fantastic autumn weather should return on Friday. Justin Tang, atmospheric science major Aggie Forecasting Team
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By PAAYAL ZAVERI Aggie News Writer
This past weekend, a group of Bay Area cyclists embarked on a two-day ride called The Ride to Know from San Francisco to Sacramento in support of Proposition 37. Prop. 37, the California voter initiative to require labeling of genetically-modified
(GM) foods, has been a debated item on the Nov. 6 ballot. The cyclists included members of the Biosafety Alliance, California Right to Know, Sustainable Living Roadshow and various other people who support Prop. 37. “During The Right to Know March on Oct. 3 in San Francisco, I asked attendees if they would ride their bikes to Sacramento in support of Prop. 37; there was a lot of interest and we decided to do it,” said Miguel Robles, a member of the Biosafety Alliance, and one of the ride’s organizers. Riders started their journey on Saturday from the Ferry Building in San Francisco. They took a ferry to Vallejo and began cycling from there. The riders met people along the way and stayed overnight in Davis, hosted by a group in Davis that supports Prop. 37.
See RIDE, page 3
UC Davis sends delegation to Student of Color Conference Conference organizers aim to create a safe space for students By SASHA COTTERELL Aggie News Writer
Last year, UC Davis hosted the Student of Color Conference (SOCC). This year, an expected 120-student delegation from UC Davis is being sent to UC Riverside, where the 2012 conference event is taking place Nov. 9 to 11. SOCC is an annual event put on by the University of California Student Association (UCSA) in which students of Tuesday
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color and allies can participate in workshops, open forums and lectures about the various issues which people of color face. SOCC is UCSA’s largest and longestrunning conference, and takes place at a different UC campus each year over the course of three days. The main objective of SOCC is to promote a sense of leadership in participants in hopes of creating a community of people
See SOCC, page 3
What do birds give out on Halloween night? Tweets! Allison Ferrini