SPOKANE, Wash. — A new scam is targeting churches and their members here in the Inland Northwest. The scammer sends an email posing as the church pastor.
At first glance, you might not even notice the difference between an email from what looks like a real message from your pastor. One uses the actual domain from the organization, the other uses the pastor's name followed by the church name from a Gmail account. For instance, rob@gatheringhouse.org is real, rob.gatheringhouse@gmail.com is a fake.
The con artists pose as the pastor and asks for gift cards for a church member with cancer.
In a public Facebook post, City Church wrote:
“Beware...there is an email scam floating around Spokane where false email addresses are being set up through gmail to look like they are coming from the pastor of the church, and asking their members to purchase gift cards. False email addresses have been created for The Gathering House, Victory Faith, and Calvary Chapel (these are just the ones we know of; there could be more). They look something like rob.gatheringhouse@gmail.com. We don't believe that we've been phished yet, but any emails from us will have an @citychurchspokane.org domain.”
Victory Faith church also shared a similar warning to their members as well.
“Please be aware that there is an email scam happening where someone is sending emails pretending to be one of our pastors. None of our pastors or staff would ever ask you for money, gift cards, or for special favors. If you receive a message like this, please ignore and report it—it is a scam!”
The Better Business Bureau Northwest Pacific said it's common for scammers to use personal and emotional connections such as a church community to rip you off.
"A lot of the times they use high pressure tactics to be able to force people to act immediately, make sure you do your research to see where that email is coming from,” said Tyler Russell, BBB.
The BBB said there is no particular season for these scams and they actually receive multiple complaints year-round.
When Amazon announced their plans to create jobs in Spokane, Russell said employment scams popped up tricking people into jobs that didn’t exist.
"Don't believe everything you see, be very, very skeptical, do your research,” Russell emphasized.
A new report released this week by the BBB shows more than 50,000 people were scammed in 2018. Fake checks and money orders ranked in the top three, gift cards work the same way because it gets rid of the money trail.
"Whether it's your date of birth, your social security number or even your address,” Russell added.
Russell admits it can be hard to tell what's real and what's fake. He suggests taking five minutes, do your research and never send money to a person you've never met face-to-face.
"If you're choosing to give, use a credit card, you have fraud protections on many credit cards out there so it's better to be able to protect yourself,” he said.
Scammers often use urgent writing to force you into making a quick decision. This is a red flag, if you ever have any questions, Give.org has information on credible and accredited charities.
Spokane Police said these types of fraud cases are hard to track, often times these cases go unreported. If you receive an email from your church that seems out of the ordinary, you may want to take a closer look and check with your organization to see if it’s legitimate.