PLEASE NOTE: Church clergy and staff (and most other folks!) will never ask you for money (or anything of value, such as money, a gift card OR any kind of personal information) by email or text message, to be given to them online or sent to someone/somewhere other than the church.
If your gift is for a special purpose - even for a clergy discretionary fund or pass-thru for something specific - just write that purpose on the memo line of the check or in the comment section of PayPal.
Phishing scams originate from email. Remember, never click on a link inside an email from an unknown sender. Emails from Ascension clergy and staff will come from 'ascensionfrankfort.org' addresses. Phishing has evolved and now has several variations that use similar techniques:
Vishing scams happen over the phone, voice email, or VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls.
Smishing scams happen through SMS (text) messages.
Pharming scams happen when malicious code is installed on your computer to redirect you to fake websites.
Here is more information shared this week by Courtney Buterbaugh at the Diocese of Lexington. Note that scams could apply to voice calls as well as text messages:
"Phishing alerts are back and now a new one – vishing (voice fishing): I am hearing reports that churches are being hit by phone spoofers. What is phone spoofing? It’s when someone uses an in-use phone number to falsify the name/number that appear on the recipient’s Caller ID. Telemarketers often do this when targeting numbers in a particular area code, as the recipients will then be more likely to pick up if they see a local number. The spoofer then tries to convince the recipient to purchase something, provide personal information, etc. And the phone number they use could be yours, resulting in you receiving a lot of return phone calls from people responding to a voice mail [or text message!] left by the spoofer...
In one case, it looks like their number got spoofed as a result of someone responding to a fake voice mail allegedly from Google. Then the calls started coming. So what can you do? As they say, the best defense is usually a good offense:
- Be as suspicious with phone calls as you are with emails.
- If you get a voice mail claiming to be from Google, don’t return it. Reach out to Google and ask if they contacted you.
What if you get spoofed anyway? This article talks about some options, but generally you can:
• Change your number.
• Change your voicemail to alert callers that may be responding to a message from a spoofer that you have been spoofed.
• File a complaint with the FCC.
Please share this information with your community as this seems to be hitting churches right now."
