Please be vigilant about any email that appears to be from your clergy person or our conference minister or staff, asking you to take some kind of unusual action (purchasing gift cards and replying with the serial numbers, clicking a link or downloading an attachment you didn’t request, wiring money to a specified account, or simply replying quickly).

A number of congregations across our conference and the country have been hit with an email scam. It involves making a fake Gmail (or yahoo, etc.) account in the minister’s name and then sending a request for gift cards allegedly from that minister to the congregation’s directory. The emails seem harmless; they have the local pastor’s name and an email address that looks legitimate, but upon further inspection, the email address is actually from a provider different than the one the church typically uses. In some instances, the sender’s name may look correct but is missing a single letter. Or otherwise closely resembles the real email address; for example, bob@churchstaff.org becomes bobchurchstaff@gmail.com.

In some cases, the message asks for Google Play or iTunes gift cards and in other cases, it asks the recipient to contact them immediately.

DOs and DON’Ts:

DO double-check your emails carefully.

DON’T ever respond to an email asking you for money.

DO verify in person or by phone any request involving money or personal information.

DON’T reply.

DON’T click on any links within the message.

DO report the message as spam to your email provider after forwarding it to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov - be sure to cc the church being impersonated.

These scams attack the trust and faith you place in certain respected people. Be safe out there in cyberspace.