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 purport to originate from Oklahoma State University 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 becoming a financial victim of this scam:

  • The email message is poorly written, with misspellings and awkward sentence structure
  • The sender’s email address or website link are not authentic to Oklahoma State University’s email address. Fraudulent email address examples:
    • oksuedu@gmail.com
    • osuokcedu.com
    • okstateuniedu@gmail.com
  • The message requests shipment/delivery of products to non-Oklahoma State University 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 Oklahoma State University, you may forward it to our Purchasing Department: purchase@okstate.edu to verify its legitimacy before responding to the email or filling the order. You may also contact the Purchasing Department by phone, Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm at 405-744-5984.