All Posts Tagged With: "Kamloops"
Beware the rental scam
Kamloops student out $1,000 and has no place to live
Photo courtesy of nkeppol on Flickr
A Thompson Rivers University student is out nearly $1,000 after he was scammed online. He showed up at an apartment on Arrowstone Drive in Kamloops that he thought he’d rented, sight unseen, by sending his deposit in the mail earlier in the summer. The building manager had never heard of the person who he’d sent the cheque to. The 22-year-old student will now need to find a new home.
It’s common for fraudsters to pretend to be a landlord by posting online and then asking students to send a cheque or money order for an apartment that can’t be viewed. Often, the scammer says they’re out of town on business and that the student can drive by the place, but can only view photos of the interior. This type of scam was prevalent in Calgary in 2009.
In April, Waterloo police warned against a variation on the rental scam in which the student owns the property. Thieves will pretend to accidentally overpay for an apartment using a fake cheques. Then, they ask for the difference to be returned to them before the bank realizes the cheques are fakes.
President fired from Interior B.C. university defends record
Decision followed an annual review of Kathleen Scherf’s leadership
The outgoing president of Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., is defending her year in office after she was fired by the school’s board of directors.
Kathleen Scherf had been president and vice-chancellor since September 2008, but the board of directors said it lost faith in her leadership.
Scherf said she respects the board’s authority to dismiss her, but “thought my performance was excellent given the results.”
Reading from a prepared statement, Scherf listed off accomplishments from the past year.
“We broke all previous campus United Way campaigns, raising just short of $64,000; during my time, TRU’s fundraising activities increased 342 per cent from the 12 months previous,” she said.
“And finally, we were able to bring the first new law school in 35 years in Canada to TRU.”
The board’s decision followed an annual review of her leadership during the past three months.
Scherf is known for her often colourful demeanour, from referring to other people as “dude” to keeping bold-coloured streaks in her hair.
However, the board has insisted her eccentricities weren’t the reason she was fired.
Scherf will receive nine months of severance worth $168,000, and she is allowed to return to the school to teach if she wants – an option Scherf said she’s keeping open.
Scherf was the school’s fifth president.
Before moving to Kamloops, she was a dean at the University of Calgary and had previously taught at the University of British Columbia and the University of New Brunswick.
- The Canadian Press
