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If you work in ministry, it's only a matter of time before you're targeted by scammers. And unfortunately these emails often bypass spam filters completely. I've been receiving variations of this scam for 15 years, yet they continue to slip through my digital defenses.

When reading the email exchange below, you might wonder how anyone could fall for something so obvious. But remember—you already know it’s a scam. Most of us aren’t approaching our inbox with suspicion. We're trying to help people, and these messages often arrive right alongside all the legitimate emails we process daily. Ministry professionals (or admin assistants!) are predisposed to assume the best about others and to be responsive to those in need.

So, I decided to play along with one of these scammers to show you exactly how the con unfolds—so you don't have to learn the hard way.

The Initial Contact

A seemingly heartfelt email from "Brother Pr Onchiri" in Kenya praised my work and invited me to minister to their community. They mentioned caring for orphans, appealing to my compassion

From: omanga onchiri <omangaonchiri@yahoo.com>
To: Brandon Booth
Subject: affiliation

Praise the Lord pastor,what a loving God we serve!
Grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ to you and hope you are fine. Through meditation, God has led us to you and we are blessed to read your page and have seen the good and wonderful work you do globally for the glory of God. We now feel blessed to get to know the good work you are doing for sake of the kingdom. We are a bible study fellowship group and we are inwardly transformed and kindly ask you to visit us with the powerful living gospel of the kingdom. Our community is in great hunger for the word of God and we ask you to put it in your prayer list to ask God to give you favor to come and minister to UN-reached souls. We are also blessed to take care of the 21 needy orphans. Kindly remember them also in your prayers.

Please let us be in touch as i hope to hear from you.
God bless you, In service,from Kenya.
brother pr Onchiri

My Response

From: Brandon Booth
To: omanga onchiri
Subject: RE: affiliation

Hello Brother Pr Onchiri!
I'm so glad to have received this email! I would love to know how we can "visit you with the powerful gospel of the kingdom!"?

The Hook is Set

From: omanga onchiri
To: Brandon Booth
Subject: RE: affiliation

Hello brother President Brandon Booth,I'm so glad to receive this email! I welcome you to my church hear in Kenya so as to plant a seed of the powerful gospel of the Kingdom.

You can create an attachment relationship with me for around six or so months by donating a small amount of funds to us as the ministry in a monthly basis so as to create a basis for writing you an invitation letter in order to get clearance to visit Kenya and especially to our church for a length of time you may want to stay with us.Thank you as i hope to hear from you

brother pr Onchiri

I Take the Bait

From: Brandon Booth
To: omanga onchiri
Subject: RE: affiliation

I am very excited to begin helping you and to visit you! How do I set up a recurring donation to your ministry? Also I would love to show my board some pictures of your ministry and to tell them of your location, to encourage them about all the good we will be doing in your country! Would you be able to send me some of that along with the bank account information?

The rest of the story

They did eventually send me bank account information. The account name was “NYANSAKIA COCHOO SH GROUP” which if you do a google search for you’ll find a similarly named charity in London and an obscure reference in a Kenyan Gazette. Just enough to maybe assuage the fear of the suspicious. But it is impossible to verify who actually owns this account.

They also sent me some fake pictures. REMEMBER: never open attachements sent to you by suspected scammers! You never know when they will contain viruses.

Red Flags to Watch For

Now that you've seen how the scam begins, let's identify the warning signs:

1. Vague flattery: Notice how they claim to have found you through "meditation" and praise your "wonderful work globally" without any specifics about what that work is.

2. Immediate emotional appeals: Mentioning orphans and "unreached souls" is designed to tug at heartstrings and bypass critical thinking.

3. The financial request: The scammer quickly pivots to requesting "a small amount of funds" on a "monthly basis" before any real relationship is established.

4. Creating artificial urgency: The suggestion that you need to establish a financial relationship before receiving an "invitation letter" is a fabricated barrier.

5. Poor grammar and unusual phrasing: While not everyone who writes with grammatical errors is a scammer, inconsistent language skills can be a warning sign when combined with other red flags.

How the Scam Typically Progresses

If I had continued engaging, here's what would likely happen next:

1. They would provide wire transfer details or request gift cards

2. The amounts would start small but gradually increase

3. There would be emergency situations requiring additional funds

4. Documentation and photos would be shared (usually stolen from legitimate organizations)

5. Eventually, they would either disappear or continue the cycle of requests indefinitely

Protecting Your Ministry

To avoid falling victim to these scams:

• Verify independently: If someone claims to represent a ministry in another country, research them through legitimate channels.

• Never send money based solely on email requests: Establish verification protocols for all financial transactions.

• Trust your instincts: If something feels off, it probably is.

• Create a vetting process: Develop a standard procedure for handling international partnership requests. NOTE: There are tricky legal considerations you need to be aware of before contributing funds internationally! You could risk your nonprofit status or worse!

• Educate your team: Make sure everyone who handles communications knows about these scams.

Conclusion

Ministry leaders are particularly vulnerable to these scams because of our desire to help others and spread the gospel. Scammers know this and deliberately exploit our good intentions. By staying vigilant and implementing proper verification procedures, we can ensure our resources go to legitimate ministry efforts rather than into scammers' pockets.

Have you encountered similar scams in your ministry work? I'd love to hear your experiences!

Bonus Free Tool!

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