As many of you know, one of my mottos  is “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.”  I mention this because of a recent story in the news about a Denver church pastor whose Facebook account was hacked.   When a parishioner messaged the pastor about difficulties she was having, her pastor messaged her back telling her about a grant of substantial money he had recently received and gave her the contact information for the grant issuer so she could apply for the money she so desperately needed. Of course the grant was a scam and the message to her came from the scammer who had hacked into the pastor’s Facebook account. Fortunately, in this instance, the parishioner called her pastor prior to making the payment demanded of the phony grant issuer and managed to avoid being scammed.  However, other people have not been so lucky.

TIPS

Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.  It bears repeating.  Whenever you get an email, text message or phone call, you can never be sure that the communication is coming from who appears to be sending the communication.  It is relatively easy to hack an email account, Facebook account or cell phone.  Therefore, you should never click on a link, download an attachment or provide personal information in response to any communication unless and until you have absolutely confirmed that it is indeed legitimate.