Scammer calls Miami University, gets head of IT

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File this one under "Throwback Thursday: Scam Edition."

Officials with Miami University say they recently were targeted by a phone scam designed to bilk the school out of money by someone purporting to be an office supply salesman.

But the scammer made a mistake: He called a conference room number answered by the school's information security officer, who in turn called him out.

"'So you're the folks trying to scam us into buying toner we don't need?'" Joe Bazeley recalled saying. "Funny enough, he hung up after that."

It's called the "phoner toner" scam, and here's how it works: A scammer calls someone in an office setting who doesn't usually handle the supplies order. He says he's the business' regular supplier and that he noticed they're low on something – printer toner is a favorite, though some opt for photocopier ink – and then asks for the printer's serial number or model information so he can ship some unwanted supplies.

The supplies arrive with an invoice the scammer is hoping is paid without much thought, and usually the items shipped are sub-par in quality but with a hefty price tag.

This scam is so dated that reports of it first surfaced in the 1970s, years before today's Miami students were even born. It's considered an oldie-but-a-goodie for a reason: The Federal Trade Commission reports office supply fraud costs victims an estimated $250 million per year.

The FTC made headlines in 2000 for a crackdown on the scam, with commission members testifying before the Senate Small Business Committee about their efforts to thwart it.

Trouble is, the scam's old enough to be brand new for today's newer employees. Fortunately for Miami, employees there were dubious enough to warn Bazeley – who lucked into answering one of the calls himself.

In hindsight, he kicked himself for not playing along a little while, as he did with another scammer pretending to be from Microsoft Tech Support. (I have my own fun when fielding unsolicited calls like these, too.) "The longer I can keep them on the line, the less time they'll have to call someone else who might fall for it," Bazeley said.

Miami alerted its employees via email about the scam to spread awareness.

"Our general rule is that anytime I get two reports of the same scam on the same day, we'll put an alert out," Bazeley said. People targeted by the scam can report it on the FTC's website.

Don't be a victim:

Tips from the FTC

• Know your rights . If you're billed for goods and services you didn't order, don't pay. The law lets you to treat unordered goods and services as a gift. (Just make sure you're right that no one with your organization made the order by mistake.)

• Review your phone bills as soon as they arrive. Watch out for charges for goods and services that you haven't ordered or authorized. If you find an error on your bill, follow the instructions on your statement for filing a dispute.

• Assign purchasing to designated staff. This will make it harder for scammers to trick new employees.

• Train your staff about telemarketers. Advise employees who are not authorized to order goods and services to say that they're not authorized to make purchases and have them direct inquiries to the right staffers.

• Buy from people you know and trust. Authorized employees should be skeptical of unsolicited calls and feel comfortable saying "no" to high-pressured sales tactics.

• Check out the organization with the state Attorney General or Better Business Bureau before you send any money for any product or service. Recognize, though, that this isn't foolproof: If an organization is too new or has changed its name, there might be no record of complaints about it.

Source: FTC website