Throughout last summer, several Fresno City College students attended what they believed to be English and Political Science courses. Little did they know that the courses were part of a scam, aimed at stealing money from students, by self-proclaimed “con artist”, Jacklyn Murfree.
Allegedly paying Murfree in cash, students attended the courses like any other given at Fresno City College. With the exception that the classes were often held at Starbucks in the Tower District, the course felt fairly routine for a number of students. However, after the summer courses came to a close and students tried to find transcripts of their grades, the credit they thought they were earning in the class proved non-existent.
Frustrated by not being able to find their grades on Web Advisor, students sought out advice from their school counselors. This is when the students first became aware that Fresno City College does not employ an instructor by the name of Jacklyn Murfree. There soon came a growing suspicion that the students had been scammed, until finally on Sept. 2, a report was officially filed with the State Center Community College District Police Department.
Frantic, students turned to one of their only means of contact with Murfree, Facebook. But, when they ultimately got to her Facebook page, they were greeted with a message posted by her, reading, “Hi, I’m Jackie and I’m a con artist.” Posted on Sept. 7, it was the last comment left by her to date. “I think we were all caught off guard,” said Vice President of Student Services, Chris Villa.
The SCCCD Police Department, in conjunction with the Fresno Police Department, is continuing to look into the incident. Lt. Gaines of the SCCCD Police, said, “There’s follow up that needs to be conducted. That follow up, the purpose of it is to determine whether a crime has been committed, and what exactly happened. If a crime has been committed, it will be referred to the district attorney’s office for prosecution.”
It’s not clear at this time how many students fell victim to this scam, how much money she defrauded students out of, or even if Jacklyn Murfree was an alias or not. However, on her Facebook, she claims to be a North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University graduate from Parlier, California. A press release from July 3, 2009, does in fact list a Jacklyn Murfree as graduating from NC A&T in Spring 2009, but it still remains unclear whether that was the same person being investigated in this case.
A search of past instances of this type of incident found that, to the best of our knowledge, no events like this have been recorded at FCC in the past. Villa, who is a 30 year veteran of higher education said, “I’ve read about cases like this, but I’ve never experienced one. So they are rather rare.”
The rarity of this case contributes to the fact that no real policy has been set in place in the past to deal with the aftermath. Some students have reportedly asked for a reimbursement of the money that they lost or other forms of compensation. But, “Unfortunately I don’t think that the school can reimburse the students for the money that they have lost. However, we can provide them with support to the best of our ability,” said Villa.
One factor that may have contributed to this desperation for classes, that drove some to such extremes as paying for courses in cash, and going to mysterious places, is the increasingly shortening list of classes available to students at FCC. Villa said, “The availibilty of classes as you know has been compressed due to our budget cuts, so I suspect that the students wanted to make sure that they could get these classes done during summer.”
Lt. Gaines addressed his concerns about the incident saying, “In this particular case, the thing that concerned me was that it appeared that students were taking courses off campus in odd locations, like Starbucks or something.” Warning future students, that if a situation similar to this occurs again, “If the instructor is having you go there, odds are something’s not right, and contact the police right away. If somebody would have just said somethings not right with this, even if it was totally legit, we’d much rather somebody call… let us check into it and assure the student that everything’s okay.”
Some students have felt uncomfortable coming forward to talk about the incident fearing that the school somehow will reprimand them. However, Villa reassures them that, “Students in this predicament, to the best of our knowledge, participated in this unknowingly. So there’s no discipline associated with these cases.”
Students who feel that they may have been scammed, or care to report suspicious activities like those reported in this article are encouraged to call the SCCCD Police Department at (559) 442-8201
You can follow this report as more details emerge at therampageonline.com.