People posing as pastors of Charlotte Catholic churches try to scam some parishioners

Parishioners at two Catholic churches in Charlotte recently received emails that appeared to be from their pastors. Those who responded were asked to do what seemed like a big-hearted favor: Buy some iTunes cards for a sick friend in the hospital with cancer, do the scratch-off to get the validation codes, then take a picture of them and then send them along via email.

Turns out, the emails were from people posing as the pastors at St. Gabriel and St. Peter Catholic churches.

And a few of the victims — three lay leaders at St. Gabriel — ended up losing hundreds of dollars to the imposter claiming to be the Rev. Frank O'Rourke, the church's pastor since 2007.

"The fake Father Frank," as one of the victims now calls the emailer, got $400 each from two parishioners and $200 from another.

"I'm resigned to the fact that that $200 is down the drain," one of the victims, a retiree, told the Observer. "It's unfortunate, but this is the world we live in."

At St. Peter Catholic Church in uptown, some ministry leaders said they received emails and tweets during Holy Week in late March falsely claiming to be from that church's pastor, the Rev. James Shea.

"I got one that said it was from Father Shea, asking to 'get in touch with me right away,'" said Kathy Karmondy, who heads the ministry of sacristans and cross-bearers at the church. "It sounded suspicious, and I was going to see Father Shea that night (at Holy Week rehearsals). " She deleted the email. Shea told her he'd been hacked.

Actually, at both parishes the suspects likely got the email addresses of lay leaders from public websites.

St. Gabriel's business manager, Claudia Goppold, said the imposter who targeted parishioners at her church did not gain access to the parish's internal network.

On Tuesday, Goppold said, St. Gabriel became aware of the scam, contacted Google Mail (the imposter used a Gmail account) and sent an email blast warning its congregation of 3,400 families.

"If you receive one of these (gift card) requests, please delete it immediately," the church said in its message to parishioners. The church also asked members, from now on, to call the parish office "to verify the legitimacy of a request from any of our parish clergy."

The email blast from the church also includes a link to a Consumer Protection Agency list of 10 helpful tips from avoiding fraud.

The 46-county Catholic Diocese of Charlotte plans to send a version of that email blast, with an example of the kinds of emails to look out for, to all 92 of its parishes in Western North Carolina, said diocesan spokesman David Hains.

This particular form of fraud is sometimes called "phishing." Crooks try to get sensitive information — including gift card activation codes they can cash in — by disguising themselves in emails as some trustworthy person, company or entity.

Goppold said some of the victims at St. Gabriel's have notified police.

The imposter, O'Rourke said, was exploiting "the generosity and good will of the people here. And obviously it troubles me that (scammers) are using the church and a priest to pull off fraud and take ... funds that should go to helping people in need."

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This story was originally published April 19, 2018 at 3:22 PM with the headline "People posing as pastors of Charlotte Catholic churches try to scam some parishioners."