Scams That Con Artists Use In Churches

Have you ever imagined what some of the scams these criminals do to accumulate an abundant amount of cash flow for their church fraud? Well, here is a few ways they accomplish this.

1- They have a church member in need that claims to have family out of the country that desperately needs to come to the United States to be reunited with them. Now, this may be true. A church member might actually have family overseas that wants to come to our country and the church legitimately will help them accomplish that, but here is how they unknowingly scam the congregation.

They will tell people that it will cost lets say a $1000 to help reunite this family in the name of Jesus Christ. Many will feel led to give immediately and within a day or so the church will have the $1000 to help this family. But the church will not inform the congregation that all the money to help this church member has been met. They will allow the congregation to keep sending money for this cause for weeks, accumulating way over the original $1000 that was needed to help this family.

They help this church member get reunited with their family and even showcase the family together at Sunday service to further deceive the congregation. The church, its pastors and elders look like saviors and the con artists pocket a wad of tax exempt cash.

2- Another big scam in churches today is their so called building funds. Now many churches function out of facilities like rental halls and schools. They begin a building fund drive that will ultimately give them the money needed to build their new house of worship. They even go to the extent of having architects design the layout plus have pictures of what the church will look like. The pastors and elders always make sure the church members stay well informed so that they stay excited over it. The con artists, always looking to step it up a notch, even go to planning board meetings to get approvals that they know they will never use. They never had any intentions on building a church.

Now the cost of a new church would be millions so theoretically this scam can go on for years without ever getting caught. Every week the pastors ask the congregation to give for the building fund that actually doesn’t exist. The con artists’ rake in the dough while “praising God” right to your face.

Report church fraud to the FBI in Washington DC