Saturday, August 19, 2006

Call from the FBI

So - I'm checking my voice mail at BNCC... something I haven't done since May... and the only message of concern was from a guy who said he was from the FBI.

FBI guy said he wanted to do a background check on a student who graduated from BNCC in 2004. I didn't recall the student, but since I've had a lot of students at BNCC, I was thinking that the student listed me as a reference without telling me. FBI guy also wanted to know a few other instructors that could give a reference for this student.

Since I didn't know the student, I thought it would be best to refer this person to the Dean of Students. She can look at the student's record and see if there were any nasty notes etc... So I looked up the number for the Dean of Students and called him back.

The weird thing was that when I called FBI guy back, the message said, "you've reached the office of (first name, last name), please leave a message" -- nothing on the outgoing message about being in the FBI.

Now I'm super supsicious -- because you'd think that the FBI would have better investigative techniques than to call a random philosophy prof (in the summer... no less) and leave a message. Wouldn't it be standard practice to go to records and registration first?

FBI guy was probably a stalker or bill collector...

2 comments:

T-Mac said...

Hmmm...something sounds a little off about that dude, I'm with you on the voicemail thing. Good luck with this one!

Dr. Brazen Hussy said...

I wrote awhile back about a meeting we had at my university about the new government regulations regarding foreign nationals, and one of the things that came up was "Never speak to the FBI! Always forward them to the office of whatever (sponsored research in this case)." So whether or not the guy was legit (and it sounds like he might not have been), sending him to the Dean of Students sounds like the right idea.