Don’t reply to fake texts from conference clergy

Email spoofing is once again at work using conference leaders as the sender. Remember, spoofing is when the sender of the email forges (spoofs) someone’s email address, so that the message appears to come from a legitimate email address.

Also, if anyone receives texts asking for a favor and requesting the purchase of gift cards to address some need, they are most certainly part of a periodic, widespread scam. Such texts have been reported by persons identifying the senders as Eastern PA Conference clergy, including district superintendents.

Please do not respond to any emails or text messages from your District Superintendent requesting money, your time, an email response, etc. Do not respond to these fake texts. Delete them immediately.

If you wish to report receiving fake texts, read this information from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and follow the instructions given: How To Recognize and Report Spam Text Messages

By the way, Smishing is when scammers send text messages pretending to be from trusted sources. The goal is to get targets to respond with personal information like passwords and credit card details or to click on links that install malware. It is just like phishing that uses emails; but smishing instead uses texts.

Also see: What you need to know about fake e-mails from Conference Leaders