By Baptist Message staff
ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – The Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office has issued a warning for CENLA churches to be mindful of a new scam targeting them.
According to the RPSO Facebook page, their office was notified of the scam today, June 27. The Baptist Message has contacted the RPSO for further information, including if any Louisiana Baptist churches have been impacted.
“Apparently there is someone out there going through the trouble of identifying the members of the board of directors of churches and then sending emails to the church office, in hopes of acquiring the entire church membership directory,” RPSO posted. “For clarity, they did not hack the board member’s email account or steal their identity. Rather they obtained the email address from open source and sent an email with the request.
“We want to warn our followers to always check the email address when information is being requested from you. If you have not heard from this person requesting this information, give them a call to make sure it is them.
“In our busy times, we sometimes answer emails without really paying attention to the email address. Most of the time the scammers invent an email address that looks very similar to the legitimate email address of the requestor.
“Always delete emails that look suspicious.”
