Ithaca College

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF PROCUREMENT:

ATTENTION - PURCHASE ORDER FRAUD

It has come to our attention that fraudulent activity is being undertaken by unscrupulous parties unlawfully acting as Ithaca College employees requesting cost and pricing information (quotes) from suppliers and issuing counterfeit purchase orders under an Ithaca College logo.  The perpetrators are contacting suppliers via e-mail using an e-mail address that is similar-to but different-than the official Ithaca College e-mail address domain which ends in “@ithaca.edu”.  Only e-mail addresses with the domain name, “@ithaca.edu”, are valid Ithaca College e-mail IDs; any domain name other than “@ithaca.edu” is in no way associated with Ithaca College.  

This activity is part of a larger pattern of fraud nationwide, and the FBI has reported such fraudulent orders have been placed with hundreds of suppliers in the names of more than 85 universities and other companies.

This fraud is more sophisticated than most, in that the criminals use the names, titles, and addresses of real university employees, as well as logos, letterhead, and other materials gleaned from university web sites. Suppliers receive orders or requests for quotes from email addresses that look similar to our addresses, but that are slightly different, for example addresses ending in @ithaca-edu.com. The orders are often placed with Net 30 terms, shipped to addresses off campus or in other states, and are then re-shipped out of the country before the supplier realizes what happened.

If you are contacted by anyone representing themselves as Ithaca College that you believe to be associated with fraudulent activity, please contact the Ithaca College Procurement & Strategic Sourcing organization immediately via the following: strategicsourcing@ithaca.edu.

Incidents should also be reported to the FBI via their IC3 website:http://www.ic3.gov