Every once in a while we hear from someone in our church family who reports receiving an email from a church staff member requesting that they buy them an Ebay gift card, or another type of gift card. These types of emails are EMAIL SCAMS. Neither Pastor Heather nor any staff member would send out an email with this kind of request.
What can you do to protect yourself?
There are a few ways that you can triage incoming mail and determine if it could be a spoofed email/phishing attempt.
- Check the “from” address.
Not just the name, but the actual email address it came from. Most fraudulent attempts will contain a real name, but a fake email address. For example, it could say:
From: Heather Baker Bailes (heatherbakerbailes33@gmail.com) Now, even though it says it’s from “Heather Baker Bailes”, the email associated with it is definitely not a legitimate church email. So, if a church staff member emails you from an address that isn’t an official church email address (@umcchurches.org), you should be very suspicious! - Look for spelling and grammar errors.
Everyone makes mistakes; however, Internet scammers are well-known for their terrible composition abilities. Keep in mind the writing style of people you communicate with frequently, and if you see an abnormal number of grammatical errors, strange word choices, and unusual tone in an email from them that otherwise appears legitimate, it may be a fraudulent attempt. - Again, noone from our staff will ever ask you for money or gift cards. We will also never ask for your password.
- Does the email have a sense of urgency? It’s most likely a scam.
- Please check our staff contact page HERE to familiarize yourself with our email addresses. Our addresses use @umcchurches.org.
For more tips on email and phishing scams, visit the Federal Trade Commission website HERE.