{"id":8121,"date":"2012-10-22T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=8121"},"modified":"2012-10-26T13:52:43","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T18:52:43","slug":"scammers-beware-sinclair-is-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2012\/10\/22\/scammers-beware-sinclair-is-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"Scammers beware: Sinclair is watching"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some students, receiving their financial aid refund check means getting their bills caught-up, a boost to their savings account or a shopping spree. For other students, that check means it\u2019s time to withdraw from all of their classes.<\/p>\n

Jodi Owens, assistant director of Financial Aid Compliance, said that a \u201cfinancial aid scammer\u201d is described as someone who applies for financial aid with no intentions of taking classes.<\/p>\n

This could be someone who registers for classes, then withdraws when refund checks are distributed. It could also be someone who assumes the identity of another person, or someone who recruits others to apply for financial aid, then takes a cut of what is refunded back to the student.<\/p>\n

According to Owens, if a person is caught scamming, they may be required to pay back all money received fraudulently, pay hefty fines or serve jail time. The person also may not be able to receive any more financial aid until all money is paid back.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur college takes fraud and waste very seriously,\u201d said Owens.<\/p>\n

Sinclair has a team of employees from the Financial Aid department, as well as senior managers from other departments, who look at things closely to catch scammers in the act \u2014 including attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou earn your aid,\u201d said Owens. \u201cIf you don\u2019t show up for classes, you don\u2019t earn your aid.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said each instructor has individual attendance policies and if students meet those policies, students will then have met their attendance requirements.<\/p>\n

Some students believe the policy should be harsher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s unfair. I feel like they should have stricter regulations to receive financial aid \u2014 attendance-wise, like regulations on attendance,\u201d said Stacy Wilkerson, English major.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t get how they get their money if they don\u2019t show up for class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owens said that financial aid fraud is harmful to the system \u2014 it\u2019s less money for others and taxpayers are affected by these acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s messed up because there\u2019s people who really need that money who don\u2019t get it because their parents make too much money, but still come to class and do what they need to do,\u201d said Phallynn Jones, Social Work major.<\/p>\n

Owens said there have been a couple of cases of identity theft at Sinclair. To combat the chance of this happening, the federal government requires some financial aid recipients to participate in the verification process.<\/p>\n

The verification process is used to catch inconsistencies when receiving financial aid. One in three students are picked at random and they have to show their tax information to their college.<\/p>\n

\u201cSinclair offers a good education,\u201d said Owens. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to send off for financial aid and go through all that trouble, you might as well get an education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Michael Adkins, financial aid tech, advises a student in the office located in Building 10.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some students, receiving their financial aid refund check means getting their bills caught-up, a boost to their savings account or a shopping spree. For other students, that check means it\u2019s time to withdraw from all of their classes. Jodi Owens, assistant director of Financial Aid Compliance, said that a \u201cfinancial aid scammer\u201d is described […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Untitled-11.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-26Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8121"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8157,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions\/8157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}