Pastor Wayne Cordeiro is the most well-known pastor to come out of Hawaii, his messages reaching over 100,000 people worldwide.
Now he is the latest victim of internet fraud.
"First notice was when I personally received some requests from Wayne Cordeiro and it didn’t even have a photo on it, so I was like, ‘Wait a minute, he’s already my friend," said New Hope Web Content Manager Maricar Amuro.
Amuro dug deeper, and found at least nine other Wayne Cordeiro imposters.
She sent out a warning on his official page, but it wasn’t early enough to for people like Ryan Riveira.
"It was claiming that Pastor Wayne was in Africa. It was a church that was about to crumble with x amount of members and children if they didn’t come up with x amount of dollars," said Riveira.
Ryan’s unsuspecting mother wired $1000 to the organization through Western Union.
"it’s hard because we struggle ourselves, but when it comes to the church and things like that, it was a pretty easy decision to give to the Lord," said Riveira.
But they weren’t alone– at least five others also fell victim to the scam.
"This is sort of an epidemic, a violation of how we trust on social media. This is an example where it’s abused because of people who are trusting and have a good heart," said Amuro.
Which is why cyber crime expert Chris Duque says that especially on the internet, buyers must beware.
The language, the grammar, the spelling, that’s one red flag. The second red flag is the urgency– you need to pay, give me the money now, so there’s a sense of urgency. Sympathy– they work on your emotions," said Duque.
Three flags Ryan wishes he would’ve seen.
"I told my mom, no worries because we can always replace the $1000. Let this be a $1000 lesson to our family," said Riveira.
Duque says that if you feel someone’s trying to scam you, bookmark the page, make sure the web address is visible, print it out and make a police report.
If you feel that you may have wired money to a fraudulent account, click here.
Click here for Pastor Wayne Cordeiro’s official Facebook page.
See the original article at: KHON2 Developing Stories
