In May 2020, a number of people associated with the church received e-mails falsely claiming to be from our minister. Some of them were asking for money to be transferred.

Please remember that it is trivial to falsify the sender address on an e-mail. If you are in any doubt at all as to the authenticity of an e-mail from anyone at St Columba's, contact them via another means (do not rely on any phone numbers quoted in the e-mail!) and ask if it's genuine. You should never receive an e-mail from anyone at the church asking for gift cards to be purchased or money to be transferred.

Any falsified e-mails should be deleted without opening them. Do not reply and do not click on any links.

Please take a moment to share this advice with your friends and relatives. Social engineering is very easy to fall for, and we all need to be alert for this type of scam.