NEWS: Students warned - Fake Warwick 2017 Freshers Groups run by data-miners, programmers, and event promoters

This summer, the Eye has seen a growth in the number of fake Warwick University Freshers Facebook Groups run by data-mining software programmers and social media marketeers. These groups are NOT run by the University or by Warwick Students' Union, students have been warned.

The only official Fresher's groups run by the Warwick Student's Union, are as follows:

University of Warwick Applicants & Freshers 2017-2018 - OFFICIAL group

Warwick Freshers 2016-2017 - OFFICIAL GROUP for info & events

Warwick students and Freshers advised to avoid fake Freshers Group run by data-mining programmers.

Some of these groups can only be accessed by students, after providing details whether the University of Warwick were their first choice - OFFICIAL University and Warwick SU groups will NEVER ask personal questions like these.

The Eye has found that one of the admins of these Facebook Groups, Alex Bowen is a software engineer who uses HTML5 and Javascript - (don't get too excited) it's not Alex Bowen from Love Island... We understand he uses several Facebook accounts [1,2,3] to run the University of Warwick Freshers // 2017 - 2018 group, and have found what we believe are his GitHub and Twitter profiles (this has yet to be 100% verified). We know he has used one of his Facebook accounts to recruit for HTML/Javascript programmers in the past.

Alex Bowen [left] HTML5/Javascript Software Engineer, Alex Bowen [right] from Love Island (Images from Twitter, and Birmingham Mail respectively)

Competent use of these programming languages will allow programmers to collect en-mass Warwick students' personal data, including date of birth, year of study, subjects, former schools, posts, and interests from Facebook profiles inside these groups. The other admins of these groups are event promoters and social media marketeers.

Another notable admin of one of these groups is Jake Shepherd, founder of Complete Students Ltd- a company selling 'accomodation essentials' to students. Jake runs one of these Warwick 'Freshers' Groups with his mother, Sally Shepherd - the Eye has been unable to ascertain what capacity Sally Shepherd holds at Complete Students. Either way, neither of these individuals are affliated with the University of Warwick, but also run equivalent groups at Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, among others...

Jake and Sally Shephard, both admins of Warwick Freshers 2017 Facebook Group, Founder of Complete Students Ltd with mother in unknown capacity. [image from Facebook]

The Eye highly advises students to inform both the University and Warwick Students' Union - to follow this up. Students should consider reporting these groups directly to Facebook, and NOT to the Admin (since that directly informs the group admins)...

The Eye has found that the 5 following groups and pages (below) are not genuine Facebook groups run by Warwick institutions, but designed to mine data and effectively provide for-profit companies unsolicited marketing. Students are advised to avoid:

University of Warwick Freshers // 2017 - 2018 [group]
University of Warwick Freshers 2017 - 2018 [group]
Warwick Freshers 2017 [group]
Warwick Freshers 2017 [page]
Warwick Freshers 2017 [page]

By Warwick Eye

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