Students across all three University of Toronto campuses have increasingly been targeted by petty fraud operators using an age-old tactic: upselling faulty electronics.

According to Campus Safety activity reports, “projector scams” were reported on eight separate days as of the end of January — three of those in November alone. 

On November 24, 2025, third-year University College student Justin Arandia called Campus Safety after witnessing the scammers in action on Huron Street. 

Arandia recognized the scammers because he had been targeted by them before, he said to The Varsity in an interview. “They’ve tried to scam me three times in the past two years… They usually go for international students… I think they profiled me as [one],” Arandia observed.

Campus Safety has warned of other scams that commonly target international students.

“They hang around Huron Street from Clara Benson to Bikechain, pull up to you and say, ‘Hey, do you want a free TV?’ ” Arandia continued, “They ask you to e-transfer them or give cash, $750 or something along those lines. They say that this TV is worth $12,500; they just had an extra because their boss ordered wrong, and they have a yellow invoice sheet with them. That’s what makes it seem so legit.”

The technology sold by the scammers is not worth the prices they claim. 

Other campus locations where projector scams have been reported to Campus Safety include Galbraith Road, King’s College Circle, Russell Street, College Street, St. George Street, Charles Street West, and Hart House Circle. 

Arandia called Campus Safety after noticing the scammers speaking with other students. A Special Constable arrived in a squad car, spoke to one of the scammers, and watched them depart in a black SUV. 

“What [Campus Safety] said [about the scammers] is that it’s a grey line. They can’t really ban them from campus unless someone who was already scammed went to them or the police,” Arandia said. 

In a post on r/UofT from May 2025, several users described similar incidents on St. George, UTM, and UTSC over the past two years. One commenter claimed that when he encountered the scammers, they had a Québec license plate, which students at Western University had also reported in connection with a similar scam.

Arandia also reported a Québec license plate, although it’s not clear whether or not these cases were all perpetrated by the same people. The tactic — often called the white van speaker scam — has been common in Canada and internationally for decades. 

Toronto residents have lately described similar incidents occurring off campus as well. 

Under a recent post about the scam on a Toronto Facebook group, a commenter asked, “Let me know if you see them, they scammed me in 1978.”