Reminder: Bishop Larry Silva will never email or otherwise contact you to ask that you buy and send him gift cards, money or gifts.
Recent emails circulating to local Catholic churches, schools and diocesan employees are pretending to be the bishop or perhaps another church official. The phishing emails usually ask the recipient to buy a gift card on behalf of the bishop for someone hospitalized with COVID-19.
The emails are similar to this one sent to a chancery employee on May 9.
God bless you. And I pray you shall be healed from any difficulties you’re going through. I’m ok thanks for your response ,One of our parochial priest has tested positive for COVID-19. He is an older person with underlying medical conditions, (Pneumonia, diabetes). He is stable in the hospital at this time. I should have call you instead of mailing you but phones calls are not allowed to be use during the short house I’ll be using here that’s why i send the emails ,I just need you to get Walmart gift card today for him and some women going through same at the hospital he is. but I can’t do that right now because of my busy schedule.There are 3 of the women but i’m thinking of $500 worth of Walmart gift card only for the sick patients , ($100 denomination each. That’s 5 cards of $100 each).
Can you get it from any store around you possibly now? and I will pay you back later in cash or check. Let me know if you can get the card for these patients . Please take precautions and heed the advice of practicing social distancing.
may the Lord bless and protect us all. We keep pray for those who have been infected by this virus”
While the incorrect grammar, poor punctuation and capitalization, and other inconsistencies in the message might tip a recipient off, the missives come from email addresses that can look legitimate at first glance. The above email was sent from bishop.clarence.l.silva.rcchawaii@gmail.com. Other times, scammers will use a display name that says it’s an rrchawaii.org address, but when the address is hovered over or clicked on to expand it, the actual email is from an unofficial source and not a Roman Catholic Church Hawaii (rcchawaii) address.
Bishop Silva has reconfirmed that he will never send an email asking an individual for money, gift cards or any other gift.
Most phishing emails get caught up in the Diocese of Honolulu’s spam filters, the diocese’s information technology manager Francis Kung told the Hawaii Catholic Herald for a previous story, but spoofers are getting more elaborate and knowledgeable in how to avoid getting caught by spam blocker keywords and algorithms. The email above had the subject line FW: OUR LORDS BLESSINGS BE WITH YOU.
The scammers have used fake email addresses or ones that look like they are coming from an rcchawaii.org address. Examine the sender’s address carefully and you will see it is a non-official account. You can report scam emails to the Diocese of Honolulu’s IT office.
Read more about how to prevent email phishing scams in our previous article on local Catholic spam campaigns.
