New e-mail scam targets Catholics, church institutions

Published: 2007-09-06

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- A new spam scam targeting Catholics and church institutions promises recipients that they are among 100 people worldwide chosen at random to receive $650,000 from the Catholic Church in Italy "for your own personal, educational and business development." The grants are supposedly designed "to make a notable change in the standard of living of people all around the universe." Recipients are urged to contact "the church executive secretary"-- sometimes named as Sister Abrielle Gallo, at other times a Miss Mary Pepe -- to receive "your donation pin number, which you will use in collecting the funds." No such grant program exists, and the church does not allocate donations randomly or by lottery, as the e-mail suggests. An almost identical e-mail purports to be from the "eglise catholique en France," the Catholic Church in France. According to the Web site www.hoax-slayer.com, such communications are "bait used by scammers to trick victims into replying to the e-mail."

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