This isn’t the kind of post I like to send, but I think it is unfortunately necessary. Thank you for your patience with this one.
A week or so ago, I started getting phone calls from my friends, just confirming that the email from me, asking for them to send me a gift card was a scam. It was of course, and it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
Indeed, this seems to happen to Grand Masters, and Past Grand Masters in my Jurisdiction quite frequently. The crooks find our names on our website, create email accounts that seem like they could be ours, and then start emailing lists of Freemasons, seeking someone who will fork up some dough. I presume that this happens frequently in other Jurisdictions as well.
When this happens, our Grand Secretary sends out a notice to our Masons, explaining that it is a scam, and isn’t coming from whomever it claims to be coming from. I received one such email yesterday in fact, when someone purporting to be one of our PGMs sent out the latest scam.
I know that it doesn’t seem like people would fall for these scams, yet obviously they do, for if they did not, the crooks wouldn’t go to all the effort of doing them. I never actually knew anyone who fell for this gift card scam though.
That is until last night.
Last night my wife and I received a call from a young woman who fell for just such a scam yesterday. She ended up purchasing $3000 worth of gift cards, and giving the numbers off of them to someone on the phone. She made the purchases with her debit card, so her money is quite likely gone forever.
I send this as a cautionary tale.
No Grand Master or Past Grand Master will ever send his Masons an email asking for a gift card to cover some emergency or another. Likewise no GM or PGM will send a cryptic email looking for alternative ways of making contact, or apps for exchanging money.
If you receive something like this, please rest assured it is illegitimate. Delete it and forget it.
I apologize if you feel that this warning is unnecessary. I’m sending it because the scammers seem to be getting ever more sophisticated in their ruse. I certainly would have never thought that the young woman mentioned above would ever be tricked by something like this, so think it just proof that we all could benefit from a little reminder from time to time.
Plus it is maddening as hell knowing that criminals are using my name and photographs to try and trick Freemasons out of their hard earned money.
Don’t forget that tonight we will be discussing the fine book Observing The Craft over Zoom. Login details will go out to paid Emeth subscribers at 3:00 PM for the discussion at 7:30 Pacific. I look forward to seeing you there!
You are correct, this is happening in other jurisdictions as I've been getting emails from our GM and the GL office warning of this for the last several months.
The best way to avoid this activity is to not have lists of emails publicly published that criminals can farm for victims.
This speaks to a broader issue that I wish people were more cognizant of. If you have a FB profile, stop responding to those seemingly innocent questions that get posted from time to time. What was your first car? What town were you born in? What's your first pet's name? Recognize these? If you answer them, you've giving criminals answers to common security questions used by companies online to protect your information. Just stop.
There is so many ways that people are fooled into giving away their money. FB does nothing to police the content to protect you from scams. There's been a rash of so called "liquidation sales" of expensive items, like guitars, laptops, computers for what seems to be a steal (usually for sale less than $100 dollars). The old saying, if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't, applies.
Be careful out there.