While the Internal Revenue Service battles impostors this tax season as fraudsters prey on panicked, ill-informed victims, fraud happens all year round. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) named impostor scams as the third most common consumer complaint in 2014. Even schools are targets for such scams, as our Business Officer e-List reported this month.
This year's "hot" scam comes in the form of emails to lower-level Business Office employees, requesting immediate wire transfers. With a little common sense and basic protocols, these schools avoided potentially costly and untraceable mistakes—and by following their advice, so can yours.
- Take your time. Even if a caller claiming to be a Board member or representative of your accrediting agency threatens immediate repercussions should you fail to act, find a way to stall. Pressuring potential victims into making rushed decisions is the sign of fraud, and it's worth taking the time to verify this is an authentic authority.
- Don't trust names, emails, or caller IDs. Thanks to modern technology, scammers are able to impersonate everyone from your School Head to the President of the United States. If you have any doubt whatsoever that instructions relayed in the email are not coming from an authentic source, reach out to the claimed source using an alternative communication method (e.g., call the vendor on their publicized main number, rather than using the number the suspected fraudster either provided or called from).
- Question suspicious syntax. Odd capital letters? Weird opening lines (like "Dear God's Chosen" or "Hello Sir/Madam")? Word choice that's completely unlike typical correspondence? These red flags should have you immediately assuming the message is spam.
- Don't wire money without confirmation. Wire money transfers, once completed, are hard to track and nearly impossible to recover. Have protocols in place to ensure wire transfers are approved by more than just one person—and are going to the appropriate recipients.
Additional ISM resources:
Private School News Vol. 8 No. 10 Protecting Your School From Workers' Compensation Fraud
ISM Monthly Update for Business Officers Vol. 13 No. 3 Double-Check the Books and Avoid Embezzlement
ISM Monthly Update for Business Officers Vol. 11 No. 2 Risk Management: Avoiding Scams
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 27 No. 7 The Board's Role in the Annual Audit
