'Spoofing' Scammers Tricking OSU Students Into Sending Money, Nude Photos

Scammers are tricking Oklahoma State University students into sending them money and nude photos, officials said Tuesday.

Wednesday, October 21st 2020, 5:22 pm



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Scammers are tricking Oklahoma State University students into sending them money and nude photos, officials said Tuesday.

University officials and police are working to warn potential victims and locate the suspects.

Officials said the suspects are "spoofing," which involves using an app or website to mimic phone numbers.

In this case, the suspects are calling Oklahoma State students from a number that looks like an OSU police department's non-emergency line.

Once the victims are on the phone, the scammers claim to be police staff.

“We assume at this point that they’re obtaining that information from our website, because if you go to our website you can look at all of our staff,” OSU police Capt. Colt Chandler said.

Chandler said the department has received numerous reports of the spoofing this week.

In a few cases, students were tricked into sending money or nude photos to the scammers, according to police.

“OSU PD would never call and solicit that type of information. We would never try to verify any type of unique, specific information over the phone,” Chandler said.

University officials sent a message to students on Tuesday, warning them of the crime, and encouraging anyone with a suspicious call to report it.

“We’re encouraging people to report any type of spam calls, not only to their local jurisdiction so it can be reported and documented, but to the FCC, and also the FBI through their IC3 tip portal,” Chandler said.

OSU police are working to track down the suspects.

“The people who are involved in these types of nefarious activities are very good at what they do, and so, they find avenues or weaknesses of people and exploit them, unfortunately,” Chandler said.

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