Often our company catches college students pretending to be customers so they may get pertinent information to complete their business class projects. These projects are often done along with others in a team or group effort, which are designed to simulate the formation of a company from seed to weed.

Often these students will get their classmates, boyfriends or girlfriends to assist them in the collection of this data. Basically these students conspire to deceive and misrepresent which is annoying and often harassing to business owners, as they use fake names or friends to lie. Some companies end up divulging information which maybe proprietary thinking these fraudulent students are buyers of a certain product or service.

In our company I usually catch them at their deception, misrepresentations and lies. I think it is an old habit from franchising, as about 35% of our inquiries were fake and from competitors. In my retirement I notice they still contact me and lie, now I just help people for fun, but only if they are worthy, otherwise I am semi-retired these days.

Dear college students;