Gift card fraud in Australian supermarkets<\/a><\/p>\nAn ABC investigation discovers gift cards that have been tampered with are being sold by Australia’s biggest supermarkets, with charges even being laid over the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The diocese decided it had seen the scam attempted enough times to warrant issuing a video warning to church leaders and members.<\/p>\n
Mr McQueen said scammers were impersonating church leaders, whose names are typically publicly available online, to gain access to a church’s directory.<\/p>\n
“If they do get access, the scammer then emails members of the congregation pretending to be the rector, asking them to purchase gift cards for a vulnerable member of the congregation,” he said.<\/p>\n
The scammer then requests the victim send through the details of the card.<\/p>\n
“In the busyness of church life, it’s easy to imagine how a request like this coming from a rector might be actioned by someone just trying to be helpful,” Mr McQueen said.<\/p>\n
Fake pianos and altered invoices<\/p>\n
The National Anti-Scam Centre, run by the ACCC, said this scam had been operating around the country since 2021, targeting churches in every state and territory.<\/p>\n
“If victims do send gift card numbers, they are asked to purchase more,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
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The National Anti-Scam Centre says this scam has been happening in every state and territory around the country. (ABC News Graphic: Cordelia Brown)<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said another scam targeting churches included the office being sent fake invoices or council rates drafted to look authentic.<\/p>\n
Another scam identified by the centre included churches receiving fake offers to donate a grand piano, requesting that the church pay ‘shipping costs’.<\/p>\n
“Before responding to requests for personal information, money or bank account details from someone claiming to be from your church or religious group confirm it is legitimate,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
‘Close to being violated’<\/p>\n
When Ms Reisener heard of the widespread scam, she felt “sick”.<\/p>\n
“It feels close to being violated,” she said, adding that scammers were exploiting the good relationship between a minister and their congregation.<\/p>\n
“From a Christian background, people are often giving to others to help them.<\/p>\n
“It’s playing on people’s emotions and natural responses.”<\/p>\n
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Ms Reisener says the scam preys upon vulnerable people who mistakenly think they are charitably helping others. (ABC News: James Tugwell)<\/p>\n
Ms Reisener said churches had vulnerable people who might not be able to detect a scam.<\/p>\n
“I come from a congregation of elderly people,” she said.<\/p>\n
“A lot of them aren’t computer savvy. They would see it as a legitimate email and they wouldn’t question it.<\/p>\n
“It’s potentially preying on vulnerable elderly people in a church environment.<\/p>\n
“People need to be warned.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scammers are impersonating church ministers, hoping to prey on the charity of vulnerable members of congregations in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,470212,99,22681,470215,45997,470214,470213,50029,26673,1158,22864,15733,371935,6649],"class_list":["post-901797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-anti-scam-centre","tag-business","tag-church","tag-delivery-costs","tag-email","tag-fake-piano","tag-impersonation","tag-minister","tag-north-queensland","tag-police","tag-scam","tag-scammer","tag-scamming","tag-townsville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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