{
  "id": "2025-05-05-columbia-college-chicago-gift-card-supervisor-impersonation",
  "slug": "columbia-college-chicago-gift-card-supervisor-impersonation-2025-05-05",
  "institution": {
    "name": "Columbia College Chicago",
    "shortName": "Columbia Chicago",
    "state": "IL",
    "type": "private-bachelors",
    "alertSystemName": "Campus Safety Alert"
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "2025-05-05",
    "type": "other",
    "cleryCategory": "timely-warning",
    "resolution": "contained",
    "headline": "Gift-card scam impersonating a supervisor",
    "headlinePublic": "Gift-card scam impersonating a supervisor",
    "summary": "Campus Safety [issued a Crime Advisory after a community member was contacted by someone impersonating a supervisor in an unsuccessful gift-card fraud](https://students.colum.edu/safety/pdf/46427901_may_5_2025.pdf).",
    "outcome": "Unsuccessful fraud attempt. Crime Advisory includes FTC gift-card warning."
  },
  "alerts": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "initial",
      "timestampApprox": "2025-05-05",
      "channel": "email",
      "verbatimText": "May 5, 2025\n\nColumbia College Chicago Community:\n\nCrime Advisory:\n\nA community member reported being contacted by an individual impersonating a supervisor in an unsuccessful attempt to commit a fraud.\n\nAwareness and Precautions:\n\nPlease be aware of gift card scams. These scams involve fraudulent schemes where criminals trick individuals into purchasing gift cards and then relaying the gift card numbers. The offenders may impersonate a person in authority, such as a boss or government official, and typically convey a sense of urgency.\n\nQuote from the Federal Trade Commission: Only scammers will tell you to buy a gift card, like a Google Play or Apple Card, and give them the numbers off the back of the card. No matter what they say, that’s a scam. No real business or government agency will ever tell you to buy a gift card to pay them.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "confidence": "high",
      "sourceUrl": "https://students.colum.edu/safety/pdf/46427901_may_5_2025.pdf",
      "sourceDescription": "Campus Safety Crime Advisory PDF",
      "annotations": [
        "Dual independent PDF fetch match 2026-08-23: 251438 bytes, sha256 4a041fd791fe81a4767230a72bf62b4c1708d58f234b036ca4eb0dd869c1a0bb.",
        "Advisory body transcribed from the PDF text layer. Standing safety-precaution chrome omitted except where it is this product's own Awareness section.",
        "Crime Advisory colon after the label. Awareness and Precautions plus FTC quote are this product's body, not the standing General Safety Precautions chrome. Curly apostrophe in that's preserved."
      ],
      "characterCount": 844
    }
  ],
  "context": "Columbia College Chicago posts Clery Crime Advisories as PDFs at [students.colum.edu/safety/campus-safety-alerts](https://students.colum.edu/safety/campus-safety-alerts).",
  "keyFindings": [
    "Gift-card scam impersonating a supervisor."
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Campus Safety Crime Advisory PDF",
      "url": "https://students.colum.edu/safety/pdf/46427901_may_5_2025.pdf",
      "type": "official-archive",
      "accessDate": "2026-08-23",
      "archiveUrl": null,
      "archiveNotes": "SPN serialized behind burn-200 repair lane at capture 2026-08-23; archive.org save not yet issued for this URL"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "high",
  "tags": [
    "private-bachelors",
    "illinois",
    "other",
    "timely-warning"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-08-23",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-08-23",
  "addedBy": "ingestion"
}