Fraudulent e-mails and purchase orders

The following information is to help you to decide if a conversation and/or purchase order you receive is genuine or otherwise.

How the scam often works

Initial Contact

• A supplier will receive an e-mail or phone call requesting a quotation for goods. These may be in large or small quantities and of low and high value.
• The e-mail may request confirmation of shipment to a specific location (usually not a University address)
• It may request acceptance of our 30 day payment terms

The Purchase Order

• Once the quotation has been provided, a purchase order is e-mailed to the supplier that may or may not bear a resemblance to an official purchase order from the University of Sheffield
• The Purchase Order typically instructs delivery to an address that may or may not be affiliated with the University. You are strongly encouraged to look up the address to see if it is a University address, we generally do not allow deliveries to be made to home addresses, and we don’t use storage locations as delivery points. 

After Delivery of Goods

After shipping the goods, the supplier never receives payment and is unable to retrieve the shipped goods. The University of Sheffield mandates that all invoices are sent to invoices@sheffield.ac.uk and any that are received at this address that do not have a valid purchase order are automatically rejected.

Identifying Fraudulent E-mails and Purchase Orders

The following is often evident in fraudulent e-mails and purchase orders :

• An incorrect domain name – the University only uses @sheffield.ac.uk and @amrc.co.uk as its domain names for e-mails.
• The delivery address may not match one of the University’s. Typically the fraudsters use personal addresses or Self-Storage facilities. There have also been cases where the fraudster has asked for delivery to a genuine University address and then tried to change it at the last minute to another false address.
• Use of a false or unknown contact from the University
• The e-mail may use the names of a senior manager of the University
• Phone numbers not associated with the University may be used. Most University staff have Sheffield (0114) phone numbers so mobile numbers will not appear on purchase orders
• The e-mail is often poorly written with grammatical or spelling mistakes
• The e-mail sometimes claims that the order is extremely urgent and there is a need to ship overnight.

Please do not attempt to call any phone numbers contained within the fraudulent e-mails as they may attract a service charge or be listed at a premium rate.