CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A criminal is posing as one of Charlotte's most well known priests and trying to steal money from families. Now investigators are working to stop the scam, and the church is sending out a warning.
The email came in very casually, “Hi Estelle, I need a favor from you.”
Linda Sarber’s mother sensed something might be off when she received a message from a person she thought was Father Frank O’Rourke at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Charlotte.
“He was asking her if she could do him a favor and run and get some iTunes gift cards, because he had a sick friend with cancer in the hospital,” Linda explained.
The two are good friends, so Sarber's mother accepted and quickly replied, “Sure, not a problem. I can get it for you. Do you need it today?”
Sarber’s mother told the impersonator she would run to Harris Teeter and asked one last question.
“How much do you need them for?”
Fake Father Frank didn’t respond, so she gave him a call.
“She said, 'How much do you need the gift cards for? And he said, 'What gift cards?' She goes, "The ones that you were emailing me about for the person in the hospital.' He goes, 'I did not email you about any gifts cards for a person in the hospital,'” Sarber said.
It turns out the email went out to several other parishioners. One woman told the priest she spent hundreds on gift cards, was told to scratch off the activation code and text a picture. The gift cards were activated and cashed right away.
“I think it’s very disappointing that somebody would take a priest and try and use their identity to scam people,” said Sarber.
Somehow, the scammers were able to gain access to the church’s mailing list and create an email address similar to Father Frank’s using a Gmail account. They even signed the email, “blessings.”
At this time, it’s not known how many parishioners were scammed and who is behind the scam.