It has been reported that over the last few weeks a phone scam has been affecting students on campus.

The article titled, “UPD warns students of phone scam,” in Monday’s edition of The Daily Eastern News said students have reported of receiving a call about from IRS telling students they were delinquent on student loans.

Students were told to pay instantly through a wire MoneyGram or a wire transfer to avoid getting in trouble or even arrested.

Do not fall prey to this scam or phone call. The IRS will never call students about paying student loans.  They will only send a letter.

This is an issue not only affecting students on Eastern’s campus, but it is affecting students throughout the country as well, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.

The FBI posted on their official website on Sept. 28, 2015, warning students and consumers about the phone scam that primarily targets college students.

A caller will deceive the student by using and displaying the FBI’s telephone number on the student’s caller ID.

The scam has reached Eastern, but students should have nothing to worry about and avoid the call.

UPD also issued a warning to students on the EIU website on Nov. 3, 15, warning students of the scam.

There are ways to avoid getting scammed to fall victim to this.

The article from The News advises students to ask the caller for name, rank, badge number, agency’s name, and telephone number, and to say to the caller they will call them back later.

Asking for this information is important because a caller may not always to be able to provide this information or if information is provided, students can report it to check the legitimacy of it.

Most likely it is just someone attempting to make a student fall victim to a scam.

College students are the students often being targeted because college students may not be keeping a close eye on their financial records or accounts.

The Lane Community College Community website says that many scams also involve ways to convince to earn money in easy ways. Students are often finding easy ways to obtain money without working, and scams may look promising to some.

Do not fall victim to anything like this. We are all college students, so we should be smarter than to fall for something like this.

There will never be anyone calling for money by asking for your social security number, credit card number or other personal information.

If someone calls you through an unfamiliar area code just ignore it. What are the odds that an FBI number is calling you for a legitimate reason?

There are also plenty of scams on the Internet, and while they may look interesting, they are not true.

You will never be the exact 100,000 person visiting a website, so you will never win money or shopping spree from this.

You most likely do not have family that is royalty in a different country asking for a loan promising to pay you back with a ridiculous amount of money.

You will never win a sweepstakes you never signed up for.

Be aware of the scam that is currently affecting students on campus, and be sure to never fall for something like this or anything else online.