Fighting scammers: New ways thieves are targeting Butler County offices and schools

READ MORE: New scam targets: Schools, government offices see cyber attacks rise

An alarm for southwest Ohio schools was sounded earlier this year when the superintendent of Dayton Schools discovered her $5,159 pay check was deposited in a scammers’ bank account.

Other local examples digital fraud include:

• Middletown Schools saw eight duplicated checks for $7,033.51 generated by scammers.

• The city of Hamilton recently saw a scammer steal $2,460 after the digital thief sent a fraudulent direct deposit form.

• And a Butler County’s employee’s $2,145 paycheck was diverted to a scammer’s bank account under a new scheme that has become prevalent in government circles.

But area school and government officials are fighting back.

Some school districts now require their employees to make any changes to their direct deposit accounts for their paychecks in person with district central office employees rather than via email.

Ross Schools Treasurer John Kinsel said his district’s 184 employees have “have had training on different fraud scams and the measures to take to combat each.”

Butler Tech, which is one of Ohio’s largest career school systems, has installed numerous scam alertness training programs for its employees.

And Butler County’s largest school system – the 16,500-student Lakota Schools – has seen officials there change verification procedures – in some cases returning to old fashioned, fact-to-face conversations and presentations of IDs between employees and central office personnel.

Jenni Logan, treasurer for Lakota, said “after the payroll scam that took place in Dayton a few months ago we changed our procedures for changing the banking institution for payroll direct deposit.”

“Employees now have to appear in person with their Lakota ID to make a change. As the scammers become more and more creative and innovative we have to be more vigilant. I’m never going to say it will never happen here but we are trying to be proactive, even if that means changing a process that isn’t as modern or convenient as before,” said Logan.