I would consider myself a poor target for a major scam. While I am trusting of those I know and as a pastor tend to err on the side of being generous with modest amounts to those who come in seeking assistance, I stay aware of scams, particularly those coming through the internet. I have seen the “Nigerian” emails and so many like them that they are dismissed at first glance. I even check out by Snopes and other sites those exaggerated or fanciful emails that aren’t scams but purport to be about illnesses, business smears, and political intrigue sent to me by well meaning friends. I want to know what is legit and what is not.
So it was some surprise to me to find myself being suckered into a scam recently—particularly one that came to me in an email. Here’s how it happened.
I have made six mission trips to Uganda in the past dozen years, mostly giving some training to pastors who live out in the bush and do not have easy access to ongoing educational opportunities. My most trusted colleague in Uganda is a Pastor Moses, through whom I have coordinated my last four trips, the latest being this past January. In this particular Pastors’ Conference were two pastors from western Kenya near the Ugandan border. These two pastors liked what we were doing and asked that we might consider a similar training for pastors in their part of Kenya. We told them we would prayerfully consider it.
Sometime in August, Pastor Moses in Uganda sent an email to me and one of the pastors in Kenya, asking for some details from both of us and starting a new email “thread.” While Pastor Moses has his own email address, he has to go into town and access it at a computer café. Although I don’t know exactly how it happened, I would guess that Pastor Moses either forgot to log out when he left the café or scammers came behind and hacked into his account. Either way, they had access to Pastor Moses’ email account and, of course, all of our previous correspondence.
Barely a week since I had made a quick reply to Pastor Moses’ last legitimate email to me, I received a reply in that same thread. Not only did I have no reason to suspect any scam coming from his email address, but the fact that it was another reply in a legitimate thread make it less likely that I would question his request, which was a bit strange but not completely out of the ordinary—at least at first.
Needing Money Wired
The first email was pretty brief—Pastor Moses said some donors desired to give some money to purchase land for an orphanage and wanted to know if they could send me the checks and if I would in turn send the money to him by Western Union. For many of you, that would raise red flags right off, but I had come to know over the years the time and difficulty of getting money through the banking system in Uganda, especially for those who don’t live in the capital city. The truth is, I had wired money through Western Union in preparation for just about every trip to Uganda, so it was not a big deal. We had found it to be the simplest and easiest way. Still, I didn’t really want to get personally involved in this since it was a project of which I was unaware. I emailed back offering to help the donors know how to send through Western Union if it was the fact they didn’t have any experience and weren’t sure how to go about it. I asked him to have them get in touch with me.
A few days later I got a return email with a FedEx tracking number saying that a package was on the way with the checks from the donors and they should arrive that day. When the envelope came a couple of hours later, I realized it had been sent from Uganda and therefore I realized the donors must be there with him and that’s why they needed my help. Again, this would have been quicker than the time and trouble of trying to get American checks cleared into the Ugandan bank. In my real dealings with Pastor Moses, I had always perceived that Western Union was the preferred and easiest way to send and receive money.
Two checks were enclosed, one for $9,000 and the other for $9,500. The email said they needed to get $7,000 wired back as a down payment. They would have me wire the rest of it later. Even while I did not suspect a scam given my familiarity with Pastor Moses and his desire for using Western Union, I was hesitant to send any money until the checks cleared (from my knowledge of “certified check” scams), so I emailed that it would be at least a week before I could send the money to make sure the checks were good. I asked if the donors were still in the country and if they were available to communicate with me.
Putting on the Pressure
The next email said they were in the country but not with him at the moment, that perhaps they could be made available the next day. Then “Pastor Moses” related how the land they were seeking to purchase for the orphanage was a very prime spot and that a couple of other buyers also wanted it. The owner had originally promised it to them but had become skeptical that they could raise the money and gave them a deadline of Saturday—this was Thursday—to give the down payment before turning to the others. I emailed back that this was impossible, that I could send perhaps $1,000 as a good faith gesture, but “Pastor Moses” displayed panic at the potential loss of the land and assured me that they needed the full $7,000.
At this point I did two things. The two checks that had been FedExed to me had addresses—one in Florida, the other in Massachusetts—as well as telephone numbers. I called both numbers but got no answer at either place, which was consistent with their being in Uganda. I did not leave a message with either, thinking this was a confirmation. Next, I called a couple of people in our church to explain the situation and get their advice. While we all acknowledged the scam “look” because of the time crunch, this was trumped by the fact that this was a trusted friend of mine and that I had wired money to him many times. Plus, a staff member had taken the checks to our bank to deposit them, and they were legitimate checks, on the surface at least, and while our bank could not confirm the signatures, our bank did confirm through a phone call to one of the other banks that they account did have enough money in it to cover the amount. With all this, we decided to proceed.
I sent an email telling Pastor Moses that I would send the money the next day, on Friday, by about noon my time which would be about 8 p.m. in Uganda. I also told him this was the one and only time I would ever do this. I was then asked to send the money to the name of seller of the land rather than to Pastor Moses, the most bothersome detail so far. But I didn’t think too much about it at that time. It was Pastor Moses’ deal and the donors’ money. What we had heard from our bank made me feel safe about the deposits. It wasn’t my business.
Wiring the Money
However, by morning I knew that it was my business; I should at least try to talk him out of this part of the plan. I argued that such a move would be illogical; the seller could take the money without selling the land. Since sent to him, he could take the money and then turn around and sell the land to the other buyers if he wanted to do so. “Pastor Moses” had a ready answer to this. The seller was trustworthy; he wanted to make sure the money came from the U.S. and not from Pastor Moses. He knew that Pastor Moses did not have enough to buy the land. If Pastor Moses gave him the down payment himself, he would doubt that there were truly donors in the U.S. who would pay the balance. He was afraid he would get a partial payment and nothing more—or well delayed. He insisted that he be able to pick up the money himself coming from me from the U.S.
Friday is supposed to be my day off, and I had not only this “extra” project to get done but also one other church errand to do that morning; I was anxious to get them done and take the rest of the day for myself. After we traded these Friday morning (Atlanta time) emails, I went to the bank with the church check made out to cash. After talking to the bankers and once again assuring them I was sending this to someone I knew and trusted, they counted out $7,000 to me and I took it across the street to a grocery store with a Western Union station. Showing my Western Union card, the clerk was happy, thinking this would be a quick transaction. However, the large amount made her jump through a few extra hoops. Still, it wasn’t too long before everything was set. I set up a test question as part of the pickup, knowing Pastor Moses would know the answer, and the money was on its way. I would drop back by the church building to pick up a stack of newsletters to take to the post office. I used my iPhone to send a quick email to “Pastor Moses” with the pick up number and reminded him that there would be the normal test question. Then I drove back to the church building to pick up the newsletters. The money could be picked up at any time.
Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock
As I was heading out the door and getting in the car, I checked my phone and saw another email. What was the answer to the test question? At the moment I was a little irritated. How could he forget? At the moment I was in a hurry to get to the post office and quickly typed the answer, hit “send,” and drove toward the post office. As I pulled onto the street, my mind began putting all the clues together that were starting to overcome the fact that I had been talking to my trusted friend, “Pastor Moses,” all these days. By the time I got to the post office, the pit of my stomach was beginning to doubt the knowledge that I was surely talking to Pastor Moses.
At the post office, a new form had replaced the one that had been filled out by our administrative assistant, so I had to wait fifteen minutes to fill out an almost duplicate form and get everything taken care of. Someone else normally did this task; this was my first time and I was just trying to find the right place. I had no knowledge of the form. All the time I was filling it out and waiting my turn, my thoughts kept going back and forth. I knew the initial email—the one about the possible trip to Kenya—was legit. I had answered it, and the next reply in the thread came just a few days later. On the other hand, I began to realize that I had several clues that something was wrong—the request for the wiring of the money not among them. The urgency was, but my experiences with Pastor Moses and other Ugandans let me know that their ideas of time were much different than my own. It was mostly wait, wait, wait; but sometimes that would result in a need to hurry. Looking back over the thread on my phone, I began to notice subtle differences. Since English is not their first language, it is harder to judge style, and there are frequent misspellings, but I did notice that in the last two or three emails just this morning, Pastor Moses signed off a bit differently than usual—there wasn’t quite his usual closing. Still, that could be explained by his own hurry, perhaps. Larger, though, was the insistence on the money being sent to another name. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. Again, though, the mindset of a different culture sometimes results in a different logic. Then I began to wonder about the location of the land and the site size, questions I had not asked since the donors were presumably there. While not fully knowledgeable of land prices, it occurred to me that $7,000 could probably buy most places they might want in the bush—and this was supposedly just a down payment. Most troublesome was the fact that he had asked for the answer to the test question—and I called myself an idiot that I had sent it off hurriedly in my irritation and impatience to get the rest of my day back rather than seeing it as the major warning that it was and pulling the plug immediately.
Now what was I going to do? Was I too late to stop the payment? I knew that it could be picked up within minutes from when I had sent it. That was over thirty minutes ago already, and I was another ten minutes from my office. And if I stopped it and it turned out to be legitimate, would I spoil their chance to buy the land they needed? As I drove back toward the church building, I still wasn’t sure what to do. But I knew the clock was ticking. The money may have been picked up already.
Arriving at my office, I opened the file where I had made copies of the checks we had deposited. I still had not made a firm decision yet, so I decided to try to call the numbers again to see if someone answered. Someone did! Caught a bit off guard and being in a hurry, I didn’t have a well-planned conversation. I identified myself and asked if I was speaking to the man who name was on the check. He answered yes, and I asked him if had ever been to Uganda. As I tried to explain that we had received a check from him, he began to accuse me of trying to scam him! I assured him I was trying to save him money, but he would not let me get in a word edgewise. He told me not to ever call again or he was going to sue me. I told him it would be fine if he wanted to, that if he would just listen I would try to explain why I was calling. He hung up on me, but at least I had learned what I needed to know—he, at least, was not in Uganda!
I tried the other number and again got no answer; this time, though, I left a message about the possible scam.
It had now been an hour since I had wired the money. Surely it was too late. I had alerted them much earlier that I was going to be sending the money later that day. They would likely be simply waiting for the confirmation information that I had already sent. Perhaps someone was already at Western Union with a phone to get the information and pick up the money in a hurry. It was just past noon in Atlanta; it was after 8 p.m. in Uganda. Would they be able to pick up the money that late easily? Still a bit unsure even if I was making the right move, I called Western Union and asked to cancel my transfer. Tick-tock-tick-tock. My heart was beating more rapidly than the seconds on the clock as I waited for the agent to check the number. The money had not been picked up! The Western Union agent was helpful in every way, canceling the transfer. I listened patiently as he repeated all the warnings about scams that I had already known. It was my well-deserved punishment. When I got off the phone, I went back to the grocery store, deciding it best to get the $7,000 back immediately and putting it back in our bank. What a relief!
I was meeting my wife for lunch and got to the restaurant before she did. While waiting, my phone rang. It was a number from Uganda. I declined to answer it. It rang again. I let it go. In a few moments an email came on my phone from “Pastor Moses.” This was less than an hour after I had canceled the transfer. It said that the transfer number that I had given him was wrong and to please double-check and send them the correct number. I decided to eat lunch before responding. I sent an email back when I got home, telling him that I had been forced to cancel the transfer; if this was legit (believe it or not, there was still the tiniest bit of doubt in my mind), that he had given far too little time for this to be accomplished and left far too many questions unanswered to my satisfaction. He emailed back, expressing disappointment that they would lose the land for the orphanage and that he had been embarrassed in front of the landowner and the donors at the turn of events. He was still sticking to the story. While I may have still nursed a small doubt, I knew that I had done the right thing in stopping the transfer. I should never have acceded to do this on such short notice.
About an hour or so later I got a call from the lady whose name was on the other check. She got the message I had left and was much nicer than the other supposed “donor” who thought I was trying to scam him. She was flabbergasted as to how a check of hers that had all the right information had made its way to Uganda to be sent back to me in to deposit as part of the ruse. All the numbers on the check were correct. She was very appreciative of the information.
I corresponded with “Pastor Moses” twice more that day, asking him for some information that only the real Pastor Moses would know. He failed in his attempt, and I sent one more message to him—encouraging him to repent!
In retrospect, I realize that I was open to this scam because it came from the email account of a trusted friend, one to whom I had wired money on several occasions. It was initiated as part of a legitimate thread that had been started a week earlier. It was hard for me to recognize the other signs because I knew Pastor Moses so well. That caused me to overlook the first clues. I am simply thankful to God that I was given clue upon clue that finally resulted in my awakening to the possibility of a scam through the hacked email account of a trusted friend rather than through receiving an anonymous email that was so easy to see for what it was. I was especially happy and relieved at not having to face a loss of $7,000 from our church account and figuring out how to make that right. Had the scammers not taken over an hour to get to a Western Union location, it would have been a different and more sorrowful outcome for me. Not only did I dodge a bullet and have major relief, but I took some pleasure in imagining the scene at the Western Union when the scammers’ anticipated payday was lost to them just when it seemed they had it in their grasp. That imagined scene and their subsequent calls and frantic emails trying to get the correct number as well as knowing they had some expenses but no payback in the end when they could almost taste it almost made the whole thing worthwhile. Nah—not even almost. I still had that terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach for hours after it was over!
