With school back in session, a new round of scams is surfacing that are targeting college students. Jim Hegarty, president of the Better Business Bureau in Omaha-Council Bluffs, says scammers are using social media to offer tempting deals on student loans.  “We’ve been warning for a few weeks about a scam that’s popped up on Facebook offering education grants,” Hegarty says. “We need our young people need to understand that they’re vulnerable and that they are being targeted just like seniors are and they need to be cautious.”

The first scam makes it sound very easy to get thousands of dollars in education grant money. “Kids are taking the bait on that, thinking they’re going to get access to some great college education money,” Hegarty says. “Of course, it involves processing fees, they’ve gotta’ get Green Dot money pack cards and send off some money in advance.” Any money they do send off in advance is usually lost.

Other scams offer students free trials on all sorts of programs which end up charging a monthly fee. The bureau is also warning students who may still be looking for a place to live near campus to watch where they click. Con artists are offering great apartments for rent and excellent prices, but the apartments either don’t exist or they’re not really owned by the advertiser. “It’s either individuals that are claiming that they’re looking for a roommate and they won’t be in the area for a few weeks,” he says, “or it’s scammers who have lifted legitimate properties that are on the market and they’ve just created their own ads on Craigs List.”

Hegarty warns that if a deal sounds like it is too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

(Radio Iowa)

President Barack Obama has commuted the sentences of 111 people who’re doing time in federal prison for drug crimes, including two Iowans and four other people who were sentenced for crimes committed in Iowa. Mark Francis Glidden, of Clear Lake, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison back in 2003 for making and selling meth. Kenneth Russell McCoy, of Council Bluffs, has been in a federal prison since 2007 after a meth-related conviction.

President Obama’s order sets August 30th of NEXT year as the end of the prison sentences for both men. But the president’s commutations come with the condition that both men enter a residential substance abuse treatment program as soon as they are released.

Duane Clasen of Evansville, Wisconsin; Jevon Gayden of Chicago; Emmanuel Herron of Stella, Missouri, and Raeanna Mae Paxton of Casper, Wyoming, were all convicted of federal drugs crimes that occured in Iowa and sentenced to lengthy prison time. The president commuted their sentences yesterday (Tuesday), as well.

(Radio Iowa)

Police officials in Council Bluffs late Tuesday night, identified a man who was the victim of a homicide. Authorities say the body 39-year old Larry J. Scott, of Council Bluffs,was found at around 4:20-a.m. Tuesday, after Council Bluffs officers responded to a report of a man lying in the middle of Avenue B, just west of North 10^th Street. A preliminary investigation determined Scott had been the victim of a shooting. An autopsy was tentatively scheduled to take place today (Wednesday).

Anyone with any information related to the incident is being asked to call the Council Bluffs Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division at 712-328-4728 or they can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 712-328-STOP (7867).