Imagine getting this call: It’s someone from your child’s school in Oakland. They’re upset with you and they’re threatening your child because you owe the school district money. You’d better pay up immediately, the caller warns.
Multiple Oakland families have been getting these sorts of calls since the beginning of the school year last fall.
They’re fake scams, but they’re becoming a problem for the OUSD community.
“The school district doesn’t do that,” said John Sasaki about the scammers’ threats and requests for money. “We’d never do that, and the vast majority of our families don’t owe us money for anything,” he told The Oaklandside.
The Oakland Unified School District has been warning families for several months now about this and other phone scams.
Other parents have received alarming calls that their children have been kidnapped and the family must pay a ransom. In some situations, the callers have known the name of the child and have even used a child’s voice in the background, saying “please don’t let them hurt me.”
In each of those instances, the child was safe at school, Sasaki said.
In an email sent to OUSD families last week, the district emphasized that these calls are fake, and is advising families not to share any sensitive or personal information with the scammers. If you get a call from someone claiming to have your child, get as much information from them as possible, then hang up and call the police, Sasaki said. Then, call the school to confirm your child is safe in class.
“Once your child is at school, they’re safe and protected. You don’t have to worry about your kid being kidnapped from our schools,” Sasaki said.
At least half a dozen of the kidnapping scams have been reported to OUSD since the start of the school year, Sasaki added.
District staff have also been on the receiving end of suspicious texts or calls. In some cases, staff have received text messages from someone impersonating Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, asking the recipient to purchase gift cards for other OUSD employees.
In each of these situations, the target was asked to hand over cash or gift cards.
“Please know that no one in leadership at school sites or at the central office would text anyone randomly asking for money or gift cards,” OUSD said in an email to families. “If you receive such a text or email, even in your personal life, you should always first check directly with the alleged sender to verify that the message was legitimate.”
The district is also advising that families and community members remove their phone numbers and other personal details from social media so that bad actors can’t exploit that information.
Sasaki said that OUSD has not suffered a data breach, one potential source of names and phone numbers scammers might use. He suggested that scammers could have scrubbed people’s social media accounts for their personal information.
“We’ve been dealing with these individuals who think it’s funny to put a family through this kind of fear and pain potentially just to try to make some bucks,” he said. “We want these people to find a better way to make money. Harming families is not the way to make money under any circumstances.”
