Email Impersonation Scam Targets Our Parishioners

In recent days, the Archdiocese of Toronto has received reports from parishioners who have gotten suspicious emails supposedly from our priests or staff members. These emails attempt to start an online conversation or they have a suspicious document attached to the message. 

These emails are not from the Archdiocese of Toronto. Online fraudsters are impersonating members of the archdiocese and we ask you to be on the lookout for online scam attempts.

For this fraud effort, it is helpful to look at the sender’s information to determine if an email is legitimate or not. The fraudster is unable to access the email accounts of our priests or staff, so they are using other email services to impersonate archdiocesan clergy and employees. For instance, the name in the “from” line will seem familiar, but the email address listed after the name will not be that person’s usual account. Or the “from” line will list the familiar person’s regular email address (instead of their name), but the email address listed after it will be another address entirely.  

If the sender information seems odd or if the message is out of character for the sender, do not reply to the message or download any of its attachments. Please report the email to the sender at a known email address or by phoning them. 

If we are vigilant with our online security, these fraud attempts should stop soon.