Since last Tuesday (13/12), SMS broadcasts under the name of the Vice Rector of Finance and Planning Universitas Hasanuddin, Prof. Dr. Syamsul Basri, SH., MH, was received by those in Unhas. The SMS contained the message below (quoted and translated to English language):
“Good Morning/ Afternoon/ evening, I am Prof. Syamsul Bahcri, (WR II Unhas). There is a National Meeting Invitation on Performance Advancement for Educators by the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education, for Mr …., Participant Number …. That will take place in the Grand Hilton Hotel Bandung on 21-22 December 2016, All transportation and accommodation fees will be facilitated by the conducting committee that is the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education will provide is IDR 7 million. For descriptions and acceptance of the accommodation budget, please contact immediately the Head of Committee, Prof. Suprapto, MM, in 08122505248, and please contact now as his is waiting. Apologize as this is in the form of an SMS, as I am currently out of town. The invitation can be retrieved in my office in Thursday, Thanks.”
The text message obtained by the Public Relations Unhas turned out to being fraud. The message that used the name of the Vice Rector II Unhas have taken many victims from educators, and just prior to the publish of this article, victims have still risen in figures. Therefore to prevent future victims, Vice Rector II Unhas hopes that all academic elements of the University can be more critical and wary of any text messages that invite suspiciousness. “If there are events such as those, those appointed will be given a Decree. If it is sudden, then our staff would make sure to directly contact their office,” stated Syamsul Bachri.
Meanwhile, the University Secretary, Dr. Ir. Nasaruddin Salam, MT promised to investigate the fraud SMS. “We have retrieved the numbers. Police officials have a tracking system to trace the location of those that acquire such numbers,” explained Nasaruddin. The University Secretary further added that his members will cooperate with the cellular operator to non-activate those numbers that have spread fraud messages. But of course we are hoping that coordinal coordination can be maintained with all academic elements of Unhas to inform us once they obtained similar fraud messages, so that it could be processed as soon as possible.
