Here we go again. Hot on the heels of last week’s fraudulent “invitation” email sent to a number of church members, today (Monday, March 16), many people associated with the church received a very short email from “Rev. Kikanza Nuri-Robins,” asking simply “Are you getting this?”
For those of us who have seen similar notes before, however, it was easy to see that it was not from Kikanza – who uses either the uusm.org-based email address rev.kikanza@uusm.org…or her own personal GMail address. This message, however, came from “pastoroffice561@gmail.com,” which is a much more generic GMail address and does NOT belong to Kikanza. She has confirmed this.
The use of vaguely church-y sounding GMail addresses is a ploy that has been used at least half a dozen times now to try to trick our UUSM members (and it’s frequently used to target other congregations around the country, too). Please, please, please remember to look at the return address on any slightly vague or odd email you may receive that seems to be coming from a member of our staff – they ALWAYS use their uusm.org addresses to contact church members about official business. They do NOT use GMail addresses for official communications.
If you did happen to respond to this initial inquiry from the scammer, please make sure you do not respond to any follow-up messages they may send you, especially if those messages say the sender is in a meeting, needs help quickly and can’t talk to you directly, and/or needs your discretion regarding a sensitive matter…or if they contain requests for a favor or any sort of financial transaction or arrangements – such as purchasing gift cards for a church member in need.
Any communication from a church employee that does not come from a uusm.org address should be suspect and disregarded. And if you wonder even a little bit whether or not it’s genuine, you should contact the person named in the note (at their uusm.org address) to ask if the first note was or wasn’t real. They will be happy to weigh in.
