Scammers are relentless. I’m always amazed at the ingenuity of people trying to get a little bit of money from unsuspecting people. Twice over the last few months, scammers have tried to contact our church members while purporting to be me. The first was an email that went out to many, asking people to run an errand for me. Those who replied found the person wanting them to buy gift cards and send the gift card numbers to them. The second was a text message sent to a few asking the recipients to “take care of an errand for me.” As far as I know, luckily, no one fell for the scam.
If you ever get something like this, please double-check the number or the email to see if it’s from me (both of these scams used emails and numbers different from my own). Also, double-check with me on anything like this. And, a rule of thumb is I probably will never send you a random email or text message asking you to “run an errand” for me while not stating immediately what that task would be.
I’ve learned this is a regular scam that is run on churches, and I’m sure whoever is doing this combs the internet, finding contact information and the pastor’s name, and then sends out the scam messages. I’m sure after sending out thousands of these types of messages to many churches they eventually con an unsuspecting recipient. A little bit of skepticism and double-checking whenever we see something like this is a healthy thing for all of us.
Grace & peace,
Jason Jones
