Ongoing E-mail Scams Affect Our Church

01 12 2024

In today's world it is very common for organizations to be the target of e-mail scams. Christ Church is no exception. Most commonly for us, this manifests in e-mail requests for gift cards. We have also recently seen requests for donations for unnamed parishioners suffering from illness. Sadly, scam artists seek new and various ways by which to hoodwink our parishioners into accomplishing receipt of these gift cards or funds.

Parishioners often receive an e-mail request from our Rector, the clergy, or other staff members using their name and requesting gift cards or funding. They always request we do not call them as they claim to be busy, thereby ensuring the victim will not check with the real person in question, exposing the scam.

E-mails appear to have come from our staff but if you check the address, it is often coming from a domain name that is not www.ccgsc.org These e-mails often use a picture of a staff member which they pull from our website.

These e-mails do not come from our church. Christ Church will never request funding in this way.

Our recommendation is that you delete the e-mail if you received one. Further recommendations include reporting the email to your e-mail provider. Never engage the scammer.

How to Protect Yourself

If you are unsure if an e-mail is valid or not, there are steps you can take to ensure its validity:

1. Call the Parish House at 864.271.8773.

2. Check and verify the sender's e-mail address against the address on the staff page of our website.

3. Check to make sure the spelling of the sender's name is correct.

Should you have further questions regarding this issue, please contact the Parish House by calling 864.271.8773 or send a message directly to Jessica S. Smith, Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications at jsmith@ccgsc.org.

Trust your instincts. If it feels questionable, always verify the source.