Mysterious Checks From Stanford May Be Linked To Hacking
STANFORD (KPIX 5) - People in the Bay Area and beyond are getting random checks for thousands of dollars which appear to come from Stanford University, but nobody at the institution seems to know how it's happening.
Stella Miranda of San Pablo got a FedEx delivery with a return address in the Stanford Math Department. Inside was a check in the amount of $2,850. It included a memo "pay to the bearer"
"I was really shocked because I don't know anyone at Stanford, had no connection to them, ever," said Miranda. "My daughter and I were laughing. Who would do something like this?"
She still doesn't know the answer to that question, but neither does anyone at the Stanford Math department. She called school officials and was told others had received similar packages.
"Stanford, to my surprise, had said they had gotten 25 to 30 other emails and they had still not reported," she said.
Stanford officials said they did call university police, who launched and investigation of what may be some sort of hacking case.
In another twits, the actual checks are not from a Stanford account. They are from a Southern California title company, Title 365.
The company told KPIX 5 that the checks are not real and the case is under investigation by their legal department.
A Stanford official said in a phone interview, "We do not have any information about how or why these mailings were sent using the department's FedEx account and we are not aware of any similar cases occurring elsewhere on campus."
