Recently some members of the church received suspicious emails claiming to be from Rev. Doug. These messages are efforts by scammers to trick people into taking action that was not in their interest, simply by leveraging the members’ inherent trust in their church. These and related kinds of social engineering scams have become more and more common around the world and lead to billions of dollars in losses to individuals and corporations every year.

So what do phishing emails and text message scams look like? How do you recognize them and test them to make sure you are not being misled? A typical phishing email is written to give you a sense of urgency; the scammer wants you to take action quickly. The scammer may pretend to be a minister, a staff member, or someone else in the church. Malicious emails can easily appear to come from trusted sources. They may even include a reply to an email you just sent. Do not take any action or reply to an email that asks you to do something or give information that is extraordinary or unusual, given your typical interactions with the church and its members and staff.

The text message scam is especially effective because of how personal those text messages can feel, especially when they are from your church. According to ACS Technologies, “it’s fairly cheap and easy to spoof a phone number, which makes this a popular scam. Using the church helps to legitimize the text and increases the scam’s success. If the story is believable, most people will want to help their church.” They recommend looking for the following flags:

• Your minister texts you and asks for your credit card number or other personal information.
• You’re asked to give to your church in a new, unconventional way (e.g. buy and send a gift card).
• There’s a sense of urgency behind the request.
• You weren’t expecting to receive a text from the sender, or you have never received a text from the sender before.

If you receive such a text, do not reply to it. You should report it as junk or a scam to your carrier or messaging app provider if they offer such a feature. You can also use the instructions offered by the Federal Trade Commission < https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2019/07/worshipers-targeted-gift-card-scam> to report a texting scam.

If you are the victim of a phishing email or a text scam—that is, if you follow the scammer’s instructions far enough to actually lose money—you are strongly encouraged to get in touch with legal authorities. This happens to countless people every day, so please do not hide the fact that you have lost money to a scammer out of embarrassment or shame. The FBI has set up an Internet Crimes Complaint Center (https://www.ic3.gov/) specifically for filing complaints and reports of cyber crime. It also contains a great deal of general information and tips for recognizing and protecting yourself from many forms of internet-enabled criminal activities.

* "Smishing" is a term for online fraud ("phishing") committed via a SMS (text) message.