Verify before you pay
Legitimate scholarships don't charge a fee. The university bills through your student account, not by phone demanding gift cards. A campus job goes through Handshake and HR paperwork, not a Google Doc and a mailed check. When unsure, walk into the office in question.
If it already happened
Stop contact, don't send more, and report it: campus police, the payment provider (some app transfers can be recalled quickly), your bank, and the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Student legal services can advise. You're not the first — report it so the next student sees a warning.
In and around Porter Falls
The Porter Student Help Desk in Founders Union 118 is the single place to start when it is not obvious which office owns a question.
The practical details
Common ones: Fake campus-job offers that "overpay" and ask you to wire the difference; fake scholarship or grant "fees"; rental deposits for apartments that don't exist; "you owe the IRS/tuition, pay in gift cards now"; romance and crypto "investment" pitches. The tell: Urgency, a request for gift cards / wire / crypto / a payment app, an overpayment you're asked to send back, or a check you're told to deposit and forward. Never: Deposit a check from someone you don't know and send part of it onward — the check bounces later and you owe the bank. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Porter Student Help Desk (Founders Union, Room 118). Call (715) 555–0120 or email help@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.