WXIA11 reports…
“Who can you trust if you can’t trust the pastor of your church? That’s what parishioners at a Covington church are asking after their pastor was arrested on identity fraud charges.
Pastor Alan Thompson, 35 of the Calvary Baptist Church in Covington is charged with two counts of financial identity fraud and one count of financial transaction fraud. He’s accused of stealing the identities of some of his parishioners.
Calls to the church about his status were not returned. Pastor Thompson’s name is still on the church’s marquee.
Thursday night he was at the church’s parsonage where he has lived with his wife and child for the past three years as pastor. Thompson answered the door but would not comment on his arrest. “I really don’t want to comment,” he told 11 Alive News.
One of Thompson’s victims, according to police, is a former pastor at the church. 11 Alive News has learned that former pastor Roy Kiser went to Covington Police Detective Daniel Seals on March 18 about a credit card bill he received in the mail.
“He came to me unfortunately with a very, very heavy heart,” Detective Seals said, “He explained to me that he believed it might be his friend, the current pastor at the church.”
Detective Seals says Thompson used information from church records to fill out credit card applications on the internet. “Right now I have three victims that have made reports,” Detective Seals said, “I’m currently talking to at least two more.”
Detective Seals says Pastor Thompson ran up one card to $2,700. He is waiting on the credit card companies to respond to subpoenas to learn what he purchased. “This is a trusted individual, the most trusted individual you might say in our communities,” he said.
Seals says Thompson, who investigates most of the financial fraud cases for the police department, said this is one of the saddest cases he has investigated. “He took information from those who trusted him and used it for his own gain.”
One church member who wanted to remain anonymous said “If he (Thompson) asked his parishioners for anything, they would have given it to him.”
Detective Seals says he is uncovering information in the case by the hour. He is asking any church member who might think they’re a victim to call Covington Police at 770-786-7605.”
From http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=128436&catid=3
There are some churches in Australia that offer a giving facility on the internet. If these facilities use an external company to process the payments, then the credit card details are highly likely to be secure and to be unknown to the church itself. Even the computer software company providing the details can’t go and look up an entire credit card number on their database – the numbers stored are gutted (the insides cut out so the whole number is unknown, though transactions can be identified if necessary). So I would feel comfortable that a church using one of these facilities for electronic giving would not be able to steal the credit card number any more than any other online merchant can.
I can’t speak for credit card numbers filled in on bits of paper/envelopes handed out at church. But I’ve not heard of any fraud there in Australia, though I suppose it is possible. There’s no way they’d want their credibility destroyed in such a way that people would no longer want to give that way.
ie: As long as the church is using a reliable external provider for that service, the credit card number is secure.