Church administrators and members should beware of an attempted international financial scam being made on counterfeit church stationery, says Robert W. Nixon, General Counsel of the General Conference.
Seventh-day Adventist Church administrators and members should beware of an attempted international financial scam using counterfeit church stationery, says Robert W. Nixon, General Counsel of the church’s General Conference.
His warning comes after receipt of an offer from a person claiming to be a pastor in a west African country asking for assistance in cashing out several million dollars worth of gold he claims to have helped smuggle from a central African country.
The “pastor” asserted his willingness to share the proceeds if he can liquidate the gold and use the cash for his “longtime ambition to establish missions all over the world.” The “pastor” communicated on what looked like a letterhead of a local Adventist mission office.
“The recipient—a division office on another continent—was suspicious of both the offer and the letterhead, and referred it to the General Conference for evaluation,” Nixon said.
Irregularities and communication with the mission showed the solicitation to be a complete fraud. The Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook lists no pastor by the name in the world church. The mission president was identified as “Overseer,” which is not the church’s terminology. The mission address and phone numbers were not those listed in the Yearbook, nor was the name of the “Overseer.” The logo was not current.
“In short,” Nixon concluded, “the letterhead was counterfeit and the solicitation a fraud. Church workers and members must be alert to such attempts and should check out suspicious communications.”
Thomas E. Wetmore, associate general counsel, said U.S. government sources indicate such scams have netted criminals hundreds of millions of dollars. “If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Beware.” He advised recipients not to reply in any way to such communications but to report them to proper government law-enforcement agencies.
Wetmore asked that anyone receiving such solicitations to forward copies to him at the church’s General Conference world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States.
