It’s been about three months since the last round of scammers tried to trick our congregational community with fake emails and fake electronic event applications that look like they’re from church staff but definitely are not. But this week they’re back, in the form of an email sent by someone pretending to be “Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae” and using the address “ministeremails@gmail.com”…and via an emailed event invitation that appears to be (but is not) from former UUSM music director Zanaida Robles.
In the first of these, supposedly from Rev. Jeremiah, the subject was “A Brief Matter,” and the text of the email was: “Hello, I hope all is well. I wanted to reach out about a small matter and would appreciate your reply when it’s convenient for you.” It was signed “Thank you, and Blessings” (sic), and closed with a Bible quote: ““Let all that you do be done in love.” – 1 Corinthians 16:14”
There are several “tells” that this message is a fake, however. The big one is the email “from” address – ministeremails.@gmail.com. Our staff members do not send official business messages from GMail addresses. They only use @uusm.org addresses such as minister@uusm.org or admin@uusm.org. Also, the text of the message does not really sound like it came from Jeremiah – the “reach out” part is very vague, and he doesn’t usually close his communications with Bible verses.
The second scam/phishing attempt was in the form of an emailed event invitation that looks like it’s from the well-known evite platform, Paperless Post, and is headlined, “A Special Dinner Party Invite From Zanaida Robles.” As with the other scam email, this one follows another familiar pattern – this time sending out what looks like an intriguing personal invitation to an event hosted by someone associated (or once associated) with our church. Again, however, everything about it is fake, and the big tell here is not the “from” address, which looks like it could be a personal GMail address owned by Zanaida. Instead, it’s what you see when you mouse over any of the links in the email ≠ instead of directing you to a Paperless Post address, they direct you to a microsoftonline.com address, which is not the same, and not where you want to go.
So if you did get one of these emails, please do not reply to it in any way… and please just ignore it. Also, if you did happen to reply to the initial “Jeremiah” message, and got a response that asked you to purchase some sort of gift card for someone – the classic scam pitch that usually follows these initial vague emails – please do not make any such purchases, and please do not have any further communication with the sender. Likewise, if you clicked on the “Zanaida” email, and got anything but a clearly legitimate event invite, please click no further.
Finally, again, please remain vigilant about any even slightly odd emails that seem to be from any church-affiliated person but do not come from uusm.org addresses. They are ploys that have been used more than half a dozen times now to try to trick our UUSM members (and they’re frequently used to target other congregations around the country, too).
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 or – in the case of a past employee like Zanaida – to the personal email address you’ve had for them for a long time) to ask if the suspicious email is or isn’t real. They will be happy to weigh in.
