EDWARDSVILLE - Metro Community Church in Edwardsville has released information about incidents shared with local police departments of several reported instances of persons associated with the church receiving texts from someone impersonating Lead Pastor Seth Conerly.
"The texts ask that a gift card be purchased and sent to Seth for the purposes of giving to people in need — to be reimbursed at a later date — and then pictures of the gift card information be shared," the church said in a release. "The texts end with the signature “Seth Conerly.”
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Local police departments are investigating the scam.
Metro Community Church Director of Operations John Helmcamp said the church has turned it over to the police and noted that this type of situation has occurred with another church in Granite City over the last week.
“We are aware this has happened with two different churches, and there could be more,” he said. “We wanted to make sure people were aware of it. We wanted to also make sure everyone knows we are praying for these people. While this is not a good thing to do, this is coming from a place of hurt or greed. We also wanted to people know it starts out with God’s Blessings to you, so it does sound as if it is coming from a pastor.”
Anyone who receives similar texts, please be aware that they are not from Pastor Seth and we request that you notify us of the incident by emailing john.helmkamp@
The church added a final statement: "Please be in prayer for our church and the people behind these scams."
