By Maureen Smith
JACKSON, Miss. (CNS) – Scammers have taken aim at pastors, parishes and even the bishop in the Diocese of Jackson in the past couple of months.
Just after Christmas, parishioners at St. Richard Church in Jackson received a warning that someone pretending to be pastor Father John Bohn was using a fake email address to try to persuade people to buy gift cards for him.
Father Lincoln Dall, pastor of St. Jude Parish in Pearl, and Father Albeen Vatti, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Madison, had to warn their parishes of similar schemes. Most recently, the parishes served by the Priests of the Sacred Heart in north Mississippi sent out warnings to their members.
Even Jackson Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz was not immune. Twice in the past four months, someone has created an email account using his name and sent messages asking for gift cards.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the Attorney General of Mississippi have both sent out alerts about scams just like these. Priests and pastors will never email parishioners looking for gift cards and would never send a business email from a private account such as AOL or Gmail.
“Scammers are good at convincing people there really is an emergency, so lots of people have made the trip to the Walmart or Target or CVS to buy gift cards to send these callers. And scammers love gift cards – it’s one of their favorite ways to get your money. These cards are like giving cash – and nearly untraceable,” wrote Jennifer Leach, assistant director in the FTC’s Division of Consumer and Business Education.
She added that gift cards could never be used as payment for any kind of emergency such as a car repair or plane ticket.
If someone has fallen victim to this type of scam, there is some help, but the victim has to act quickly.
“If you’ve bought a gift card and lost money to someone who might be a scammer, tell the company who issued the card,” Leach said in her blog post. The contact info might be on the card, but might require some research.
“Call or email iTunes or Amazon or whoever it was,” she continued. “Tell them their card was used in a scam. If you act quickly enough, they might be able to get your money back. But – either way – it’s important that they know what happened to you. And then please tell the FTC about your loss. Your report helps us try to shut the scammers down.”
The FTC has an online complaint page where victims can enter their information. The page can be accessed at www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov.
A follow-up scam at St. Richard and St. Jude involved text messages sent to parishioners asking for gift cards for the pastor.
St. Richard’s parish secretary Chelsea Vaughn told the Mississippi Catholic, Jackson’s diocesan newspaper, that she was able to report the phone numbers used for the texts to Google Voice so they could be shut down.
Most parishes impacted sent emails to their parishioners and posted warnings about the scams to social media, but it is hard to tell how many people may have responded before the warnings went out.
On April 12, the diocese put out a warning about a job application scam. Someone is placing job ads on Indeed.com pretending to represent the Diocese of Jackson. The supposed contact attempts to get personal information from applicants.
The chancery office does not have any ads currently running on this job site and the Diocese of Jackson would never ask for personal information on the phone before a staff member conducts an in-depth interview. The diocese does not currently have a David Morgan or Jennifer Smith in the HR department.
A final scam landed in the diocesan payroll office. When the diocese reported it, State Attorney General Jim Hood’s office said it had already issued an alert about this kind of scheme because it had surfaced at state agencies.
The bottom line, say experts, is that people should always verify in person or by phone any request involving money or personal information. Email and text messages are convenient, but anonymous and easily created by crooks.