It’s come to my attention that there have been a number of parishioners emailed as part of a ‘phishing’ scam.
Somehow the scammers have managed to find the personal emails of parishioners and have specifically written the email in my name, under a fake email address such as “[email protected]”. The message reads:
“Hello! Are you less busy at the moment? I got a request for you to manage discreetly. I will be going into a meeting in a few minutes, no calls so kindly respond back via mail..
Fr Francis Denton”
It then prompts you to help organise gift cards…and you can guess from there where it leads. This is not the first nor will it be the last of such cyber-crime. In a world where personal data has become its own currency (being bought and sold without your knowing) the methods of on-line fraud are becoming increasingly sophisticated, so please be aware.
Please note that neither I nor any Catholic priest would ever contact parishioners via any digital medium requesting payment for anything. If you receive any such emails delete, do not respond and do not click on any links.