A number of individuals on campus have reported a significant increase in fraudulent vendor calls, to the tune of five or more a day. If you receive one of these calls – which frequently come from people with thick accents and request to be transferred to someone else – the following tactics have proved quite effective in cutting down on these unsolicited calls:

• Never transfer these calls directly to another individual’s extension; instead, offer a group email address like <department>@humboldt.edu
• Ask the caller specifically for the name of the company they work for and the reason for the call
• Ask for a way to get back to them – ideally, what extension to reach them at after dialing their company’s main 800 number

Don’t rely on the accuracy of whatever originating number appears on your phone; most of these calls come from spoofed numbers, so blocking numbers is unfortunately not an option.

If you are receiving a number of these calls, please log whatever information you can and report the calls to Information Security at iso-staff@humboldt.edu.