Fraud Alert

• The University of Houston’s Purchasing Department does not send email requests for credit card, banking, or personal information.
• You should never provide credit card, banking, or personal information unless you are certain that the request is legitimate.
• Current Scam Directed Towards University of Houston Suppliers
  • UH Suppliers have been receiving fraudulent emails from individuals posing as UH employees in an attempt to obtain financial information or purchase items on behalf of the University. The perpetrators of this scheme are requesting quotes and information without using standard UH processes and are not using a valid university email address.
  • While the University cannot prevent this illegal activity, there are some common traits or themes to the emails:
    • The email message is poorly written, with misspellings and awkward sentence structure
    • The sender’s email address and website link are similar but not authentic to the University of Houston.
      • All University of Houston email addresses will end in either “@central.uh.edu” or “@uh.edu”
      • Please note that the University of Houston Downtown (@uhd.edu), University of Houston Clear Lake (@uhcl.edu) and the University of Victoria (@uhv.edu) are valid email sources, but these are separate campuses and purchasing departments
      • If the email address contains other domains, dashes, or misspellings such as “@uh.edu.us” or “@u-h.edu”, it is likely that this email did not originate from the University.
    • All orders from the University should specify delivery to a University address, with a University employee as a contact point.
    • The University does not allow orders that are delivered to personal residences.
  • The University cannot be responsible for fraudulent orders or purchase orders.
  • If there is any doubt regarding the veracity of a purchase order or information request, please contact the UH Purchasing Department to confirm that the order or information request is legitimate before responding to the mail, filling the order, or paying the invoice.
  • If a vendors ships a product as a result of being duped by this fraudulent scheme, they should report the incident to their local police department.

Get Acrobat Reader.