Criminals are getting more and more creative and bold and are finding new ways to try to steal freight from our schools.
One of our schools had an incident recently after receiving several boxes through UPS from Apple Computers. The boxes legitimately belonged to the school, and all shipping labels had the school name on them. An unidentified woman came in shortly after the delivery claiming she was instructed by the freight company to pick up her items from the school. She had a printout of tracking numbers that matched the computers! Long story short, the school did not give her their computers even after she threatened to get the police involved. If this ever happens at one of your schools or locations, yes, call the police!
Please watch for this or similar situations to happen at your location. The picture below is what the fraudster tried to provide to the school as “proof” the boxes were hers. Note that she is not showing the “entire email”, and there is no reference to Apple or UPS with a legitimate looking email address.
If in doubt, please contact Purchasing, as we may have additional shipping or tracking information from the vendors or can help you obtain it to verify that a shipment belongs to your school or department and not a person coming in off the street. We also recommend locking unopened freight in a room until it can be opened or distributed, and not in easy reach of those coming into the building.
Stay aware and stay safe! Please contact Purchasing if you need assistance or have questions on receiving freight or if you need help legitimizing claims such as this.
