Attention!
An underhanded worker of evil has been impersonating the church in sending out emails.
Under no circumstances respond to a request to send money to a person you do not know!
We would never ask you to send money on our behalf to someone you do not know. We would never use the church email account to request funds for a personal reason. Even (or especially) if the email says, "I can't talk on the phone right now," - call the church office and confirm any request like this. We only provide our secure vendor widget to make online contributions directly to the church if you so choose. If you receive an email that seems suspicious, please check the address. This current impersonator is using an email address that ends with @outlook.com. This is not our email address. Do not respond to any emails from that domain claiming to be us.
Those who have received or responded to this type of email from those pretending to be us should take the following precautions:
- Change your email password. (We should all be doing this on a regular basis, but most of us don't. Take this opportunity as a reminder to make that change.)
- Check your email settings and make sure that your "Reply to" email is your email account. (This hacker had reset our "Reply to" to the imposter address.)
- Check your filters. (This hacker had put in a filter that sent all incoming email to the "Archive" folder so we could not see email inquiries that you might send directly rather than by hitting "Reply.")
- Block the address "hclchurchh@outlook.com" - this is the imposter email address. (Note again that the domain is "outlook.com" and also note the typo of an extra "h" at the end of "church.") This won't block everyone who is trying to impersonate us, but it will block this imposter.
We are sorry for the inconvenience. Evil people will try their evil ways. We pray God turns their hearts and brings them in repentance to His merciful love and forgiveness.
