Indianapolis, IN

Just recently, a couple of central Indiana schools have been attacked using an “office supply” scam.  One school fell for the scam, the other caught on to it.

The scam was a variation of the one describe at the above link. 

Someone ordered printer cartridges from Office Depot and had them delivered to a school.  A person then called the school to say there had been a mixup, and they would send someone to pick it up.  A person would pick up the cartridges, leaving the school to be billed.

In the case of the school where the fraud was detected, the secretary knew that they had not ordered the cartridges, and she also knew that the person who came to pick up the cartridges did not work for Office Depot.  When she didn’t let the person in, the person waited in the parking lot in his vehicle.

This prompted a school preventative lockdown, and the sheriff‘s department was called.  The school staff suspected something wasn’t right, and put their protocols into place.

The link above contains helpful hints on how not to fal prey to these scams.

This is an excellent example of how important it is for front office staff to be trained, and to remain alert to protect their schools from attacks like these.