As the fall semester opened, several students on campus, and in the surrounding residential vicinity, were approached by several individuals claiming to be participating in a cash contest to fund overseas study trips. The strangers claimed to be selling magazine subscriptions.
This subscriptions were offered at exorbitantly higher prices than the average costs charged by publishers for the same service. A students who paid a large sum of money for these supposed “subscriptions” reported never hearing back from these individuals and have never received any form of publication.
According to Ninich Chhour, an international student, a female stranger knocked on her apartment door on August 22nd. The saleswoman was described as having tattoos on both arms with shoulder length hair and she attempted to sell magazine subscriptions to Chhour, claiming that it was a fundraiser for an educational trip to England.
Two other international students from Indonesia, Harvey Tjiupek and Stella Then, have also both experienced strangers approaching them asking them to “vote” for a cash contest but was eventually asked to purchase magazine subscriptions that cost larger-than-usual sum of money.
On August 22nd, an Inquirer reporter also encountered a similar experience. She was sitting behind the DVC bookstore when a man approached her, asking her if she wanted to vote for him in a contest he identified as the “National Cash Awards”. He began making casual chat and asked her where she was from. He then asked her to purchase magazine subscriptions to fund his educational trip to Italy. When she refused, he made condescending remarks such as “You are an idiot”, and “Does your country not have a fundraiser, that’s why you don’t know what it is?”
In an envelope he showed the reporter, there was a stack of hundred-dollar bills, and he claimed to have talked to a Malaysian girl who bought six magazine subscriptions from him on that same day, at $80 each, which accumulated to $480. The man frequently changed his story with the Malaysian girl who chose to donate to a “Children’s Hospital” instead (which he did not name).
According to the reporter, the man appeared to be in his mid-twenties, with a short crew haircut and had noticeable facial hair around his jaw. Initially, he even offered to take her to the ATM in the school bookstore to withdraw cash for him. The man also mentioned that the convenient access of the ATM in the bookstore is the underlying reason why he often loiters around that specific location.
After the incident, the said reporter recounted her experience to the Student Life Office and the DVC Police Department. Leigh Apodaca, of the Student Life Office, says that she has heard rumors about such suspicious incidents but no one has actually come forward and reported any case.
If one browses the Internet for a “National Cash Award”, multiple results would arose in which people around the nation attested to similar suspicious incidents relating to such a contest. The only website that seems to represent such a contest has different designs for each page, and there is no convenient way of contacting the organization.
There is no e-mail or hotline that one can use to contact the contest representatives and the only method of contacting them is a physical address based in New York City. When this address is viewed on Google street view, it does not match the description given in the supposed mailing address.
Upon interview, Officer Javon Sanders from the Contra Costa Community College Police Department said that it was the first time someone has ever complained about this case, but they treat dishonest business practices on campus very seriously. Sanders suggests, if anyone ever encounters such an experience to contact Detective Tom Holt at [email protected], or (510) 236-2820.