Aarhus University has received fraudulent invoices for payment by the university. Employees who approve invoices should be on their guard.

2019.02.13 | Ida Hammerich Nielson

[Translate to English:] Hvis du får mistanke om falsk ordre/faktura, skal du rette henvendelse til chefjurist Louise Hauptmann i Universitetsledelsens Stab (ilh@au.dk), som står for evt. anmeldelse til politiet.

Recently, it was discovered that criminals have been using Aarhus University as an intermediary to purchase products such as computers and other electronics and have them delivered. The people responsible pretend to be from Aarhus University and order products from some of the university’s regular suppliers – with a delivery address in a completely different place than the university. But the invoice ends up at Aarhus University.

This means that the university’s regular suppliers end up having delivered their products but not receiving any payment, as these invoice naturally are not approved for payment by Aarhus University.

The criminals use the names of actual employees of Aarhus University as purchasers on the invoices, which means that this is also a case of identity theft. The university has contacted the police.

Please pay attention to the following danger signs

Employees who approve invoices should take extra care to makes sure that the products in question were actually ordered by themselves or their co-workers. On the invoices themselves, there are a number of danger signs to pay attention to. As mentioned, a suspicious invoice might state a delivery address unrelated to the university. Additionally, the purchase orders that have proved to be fake so far have included a purchase order number that starts with AAU, the email address used is konto@au-dk.info, and the text on the invoice shows signs of machine translation, including the titles of employees indicated as purchasers.

If you suspect a purchase order/invoice is fake, please contact Chief Legal Counsel Louise Hauptmann in the Rector’s Office (ilh@au.dk) who is responsible for contacting the police.

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