Authorities in South Carolina have warned about a fraudulent scheme in which scammers targeted members of an unnamed congregation to buy gift cards.
The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office posted a press release on Facebook Thursday, issuing an alert about a scam that targeted a local church, trying to get members to buy $200 in gift cards.
“Members of a county church have received emails, purportedly from the pastor, asking them to buy a series of $200 gift cards and send pictures of the cards displaying the serial numbers,” explained the sheriff’s office.
“Gift cards are a popular tool of scammers. Once they have the serial numbers, the buyer cannot recover his money. Never agree to buy gift cards and share the serial numbers with people you don’t know.”
The sheriff’s office added that any other victims of the scam should contact authorities at 843-546-5102.
This is not the first time that a scam involving someone posing as a congregation’s pastor to solicit donations has taken place in recent years.
In February 2019, the Greenville, North Carolina-based WITN reported on a scam in which members of multiple local churches received scam emails asking for donations.
“I urgently need to get a Google play gift card for a cancer patient that I promised her as a birthday gift, but I can’t do this right now. Can you get it from any store around you? I’ll make sure it’s refunded tomorrow,” read the scammer’s request, as quoted by WITN.
Pastor Chris…
