Fraudulent Purchase Order Scams
UMB would like to alert all vendors to active scams involving purchase orders and requests for quotes
that purport to originate from the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), but are in fact fraudulent.
Strategic Sourcing and Acquisition Services (SSAS) has received multiple reports from vendors who have
received such fraudulent requests via email, web forms and other sources.
Here are some common traits of these fraudulent purchase attempts that may help you identify them
and reduce the risk to your company in becoming a financial victim of this scam:
• The request is poorly written with misspellings and awkward sentence structure
• The sender's e-mail address is not a legitimate UMB (umaryland.edu) address – often they are
from a .org, .com or .info domain
• The request asks for shipment of products to non-UMB delivery addresses
• The request includes attachments designed to look like a purchase order, including logos and
signatures that may appear to be legitimate
Prior to responding to the e-mail or filling the order, you may verify its legitimacy by contacting SSAS. If
you believe you have received a fraudulent purchase request, you may forward it to
kgagnon@umaryland.edu or call Keith Gagnon on 410-706-8501 to determine the legitimacy of the
request.
If your business receives a fraudulent purchase order through email or other internet means, you may
file a complaint through the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) - https://www.ic3.gov/