Notice to Suppliers: Fraudulent Purchase Order Email Activity

We want to alert you to an active email scam involving purchase orders and request for product quotations that claim to originate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison but are in fact fraudulent While the university cannot prevent this illegal activity, we are actively working with law enforcement to investigate these fraudulent email contacts.

We can share some common traits or themes of these fraudulent emails that may help reduce risk to your company in becoming a financial victim of this scam:

• The e-mail has typically been impersonating Mike Hardiman, the previous Purchasing Director for UW-Madison Purchasing Services, Dick Intlekofer currently with UW Extension, or the fabricated person Steven Lamb.
• The email message is poorly written, with misspellings and awkward sentence structure.
• The sender's email address or website link are not authentic to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• The message requests shipment of products to non-University of Wisconsin-Madison addresses.
• The message may include an attachment that is designed to look like a purchase order, may include a logo or other graphic, and a signature that may look legitimate.

If you believe you have received a fraudulent email that appears to be from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, you may forward it to our Purchasing Services department at purch@bussvc.wisc.edu to verify its legitimacy before responding to the email or filling the order. If you determine that the inquiry is fraudulent we recommend that you notify your local authority and report the matter to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center at their website, www.ic3.gov. 

Purchasing Services and the University of Wisconsin-Madison value our partnership with you and appreciate the very important role you play in providing goods and services to our faculty, students and staff in support of their academic, research, and patient care endeavors. Please know that we are assisting to the fullest extent we are able with the investigation of this illegal activity by reporting all fraudulent emails to appropriate authorities.