Monthly Archives: October 2018

Robocalls from New York City

This is an informational post about recent complaints CIS has received about voicemail messages left on phones around the campus.

We have received numerous reports of phone calls coming into campus with an inbound phone number from New York City (area code 212) where the caller leaves a voicemail message of varying lengths.  All callers are reported to be speaking an East Asian language.

These phone calls are a well-known scam that targets Asian Americans.  It is similar to the United States based IRS scam, where a caller purports to be calling from the IRS about owing money.  In this case, the ruse is that the target person is being investigated by the Consulate.  If a payment is made to the caller, the complaint will be dropped.

These calls are not malicious but engaging with the caller could lead to a loss of personal funds.  Please do not engage the caller at all.  If the person leaves a voicemail and you have voicemail to email capability, please forward it to catchoftheday@vassar.edu so we can track the complaints.  After forwarding you are free to delete the original voicemail.

For more information on this type of scam, please see this article from earlier this year:

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/10/609117134/chinese-robocalls-bombarding-the-u-s-are-part-of-an-international-phone-scam

Thank you to all who have reported this and keep the suspicious emails (and phone calls!) coming.  Your contributions help keep Vassar safe and secure from Phishing, Spam, Fraud, Viruses, and all sorts of cyber criminal activity!