Ed Vitagliano, vice president of the American Family Association, says he recently started hearing from members of his church, where he serves as a deacon, that the interim pastor was contacting them via text.
He told them he was in a meeting where phone calls were not allowed, but he urgently needed gift cards for some women battling cancer at the hospital, and he could not get free to purchase them himself.
"Our elders had to send around a warning to members of the church that this wasn't our pastor sending this," Vitagliano details.
He says people can sometimes think their way out of a scam. In a case like this, church members should ask whether their pastor has staff at the church who would be his first go-to. Also, the tone and wording often give the scammer away.
"If you get an odd sense of there's something different and strange about this as unusual, certainly take precautions and double check before you respond," Vitagliano advises.
But especially with artificial intelligence, he recognizes it will be increasingly difficult to tell the real thing apart from the scams.
"They now can clone voices, so sometimes it may even sound like somebody you know," he notes.
Many churches are warning their congregations about this specific scam, because scammers regularly scrape contact information from church websites and bulletins. They use the pastor's real name from the church website and contact members directly by text or email.
This particular scam exploits trust inside churches. For anyone who is unsure about the red flags, Vitagliano says it is best to not reply at all to such messages, especially if they are from an unfamiliar number.
Editor's Note: American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
