Keynote speaker

24 Aug Scam alert for keynote speakers – London Churches

Posted at 14:07h in EQ skills, Future of Work, Networking, Newsletter by

“Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”

S T O P

Have you just received a contact request like this one to be a keynote speaker?

Beware. You may be getting scammed especially if it is for a church in London. Pull up your version of the email to see if the details match, then proceed.

I have split this blog post into 3 parts:

  1. Am I being scammed? – Thanks to the scammed speakers before me who documented their journey, I stopped well in advance of losing money and time in this adventure. Here are their stories. This blog is me paying it forward.
  2. How this scam operates – it dates to before 2012
  3. At the bottom, a copy of all the emails I received, in the hope that if you are googling for a particular phrase from your email, you will find this blog and save yourself hours.

Big things: How to start small

That is the supposed theme of the lecture series.

At 5:45 in her video below, Anna says ‘you created a great moment. You made me feel really good.’

And so they did. For an hour or so – until I had the rug pulled out from under me – I felt like all my small actions had made an impact – my blogging, my presentations, my podcast TILT the Future, the LinkedIn posts and community building in person and online.

It had all worked. Because someone had noticed and recommended me for this great big opportunity. As I teach GenZ and as I have been trumpeting regarding the climate crisis, it is a gathering of small efforts and actions.

Funny how that conference theme would work on so many levels!

EQ skills

It also showcases some other human skills that remain important as we enter an ever-more technical future where scams have gone international, scammers spoof your email, webpages can easily be created:

  • Critical thinking & investigative skills
  • Instincts, intuition, trusting your gut reaction
  • Trust
  • Sense of self

It is a shame that I was targeted, but a timely reminder too about how much of ourselves we share in public spaces.

Make. Take. Talk.

Make – I will make this PSA and alert the fraud squad in the UK and Canada
Take – Like me, make an effort to protect your personal information in your public space. Confirm who you are corresponding with. Care what you share about friends and family – names, celebrations etc leave clues.
Talk – about it widely so that others do not fall victim to this same scam and lose money, give away their personal information, and waste time filling in unnecessary forms.

More importantly, talk to the young people in your orbit about how much they share, with whom, how to do their due diligence and confirm that an opportunity that glitters is indeed gold.

      =========================   READ MORE    ==========================

Am I being scammed?

The full story of how it unfolded is in the section with the full emails. Suffice to say if you got this far, you fear you may be scammed.

Like me, you are going with your instinct that something does not feel 100% right. You are probably asking one of the many questions that had me googling phrases from the invitation email:

  • How did they find me? What is it about my message that matches their mission?
  • Too good to be true?
  • They must not realize I am not local

In my google search I landed upon the following from Patrick Schwerdtfeger. This was my first clue that I may be in the middle of a scam.

alt text

My heart sank. Maybe it is not related to my invitation, I thought. But thank you Patrick Schwerdtfeger, for putting out that alert. He references a blog post by Dr. Nick Morgan. (all links in appendix)

It got me doing a little more digging and a lot more due diligence.

Warning others

As soon as I realized I was being scammed, my instinct was to warn all other potential targets.  So I thought about creating a video to warn other keynote speakers about this scam.
Apparently, this fraud originally targeted speakers from Canada. Now they are casting a wider international net.

That is when I found this video from Anna Jelen from Switzerland which artfully and with much humour got exactly my point across. Anna shows the text from her invitation which contains similar phrases.

Here is Anna’s video:

Unfortunately, both she and Patrick got a lot further down this route before discovering that it was a scam – sharing their passport information and other personal details. One lost money, the other almost did. But their detailed videos and blogs meant that I was spared that wasted time and that misery. I cannot thank them enough, and this is my attempt to pay that generosity forward.

Empty pews

Thanks to Patrick, the cost to me was comparatively low.  I lost quite a few hours of potential productivity in a frantic week as I did my research, but I saved myself hours of heartache, angst and upset – and maybe the embarrassment of showing up on Nov 5 to empty pews in a empty church in England!

 

How the Speaker for London Church keynote speaker scam operates

The following seems to be the thread and design of this particular scheme which has been running since at least 2012, recycled in 2015 and is being resurrected in 2019

  • You receive a message via the contact page of your own website
  • The invitee is a pastor or priest of a church in the UK – there is quite a variety of pastors and churches
  • The language is flowery and dripping in religious phrasing
  • It refers to an annual lecture series and says you have been selected as their keynote speaker
  • The emails reference a sponsor who is willing to cover your international cost of getting to the UK

Once you accept, apparently the scam is an ERRONEOUS claim by the pastor/priest that you need to have a visa or work permit to speak. The ‘sponsor’ will contact you saying they do this often and can arrange for you to get the paperwork sorted out quickly. They send you the paperwork which you dutifully fill in. Occasionally, the invitation will say their original speaker was unable to speak, you are a great option if you are available, hence the urgency to work with their local contact to expedite the process.

Then:

  • they either ask for a fee up-front to process the immigration work permit – payable in cash to an individual
  • or they claim that the UK government requires visiting speakers to put out a substantial refundable bond which will be ‘returned’ once you land back at your home country

Not only do they steal your money, they steal your precious time and more importantly,  your faith and trust in people.

The clues

Anna, Patrick and Nick detail some of the clues and indicators that this may be a scam:

  • Using a (redirect/autoforward) gmail account instead of a business account
  • Referring to an annual lecture series
  • The language
  • Requesting money to be sent in the name of an individual (later stages)

How to protect yourself

  1. This is not permission to dream small and constantly question the universe! Continue to be proud of every speaking opportunity that comes your way – an invitation to share your special message with a wider audience and make the difference you know you can make.
  2. But do your due diligence. Check the email address, especially the reply-to thread which sometimes has clues that a gmail account is being re-routed.
  3.  Protect your personal information. Be cautious regarding what you share on your blogs, posts and podcasts. Never give passport or bank details to anyone you cannot verify.

Copy of all emails

First contact – email 1 via website contact page

This was the full message that I received via my website contact page:

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Karen, I am Fr. Paul Ensor, presiding minister of the St Agnes Church, London, United Kingdom. We are pleased to inform you that we would like to engage you for a speaking event here in London at the Church conference coming up on the 5th, 6th & 7th of November 2019. The conference is tagged: ‘Big things: How to start small’.
 
  Please we would like you to convey to us your availability for one of the dates as it can fit in your schedule.
   Also, please we would as well appreciate if you get back in-touch with us in ample time so we can start corresponding the details.
   Thank you and expecting to hear from you soon.

   Remain Blessed.

Peace & Kindness,

Fr. Paul Ensor
St Agnes Place
London,
SE11 4BB
United Kingdom

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

Wow! I thought. That is lovely.

So I googled the name of the pastor, and googled the name of the church – and yes, indeed, they both showed up. Lovely church. Weebly site. But it did not seem like the kind of congregation that would cover my cost of international travel. It was almost …

Is it ‘Too good to be true’? Email 2 My response

It must be a mistake. Could it be they thought I lived in London? After all, they are asking for me to show up on ‘one of the dates’.

So I politely replied, requesting a phone number and a conversation with the pastor. I figured that if they indeed wanted to hear my message, I would inform them I am not local – but that I might be able to participate remotely via skype or Zoom.

More importantly, how had I shown up on Fr. Ensor’s radar? Which angel could I thank? I would love to know.

I am intrigued as to what led you to my website, and to this invitation?
Could you tell me a little more about this conference?
If you send me your phone number I would be happy to call you to discuss it.

This thing was real! Email 3 – His very long email response back

Within a few hours I received a really long and detailed email back

Full text of the response to my email from Fr. Paul Ensor <frpaulensor@gmail.com>: Items in bold are either what played to my ego, were key phrases I googled or were indicators that this may be a scam:

Thank you very much for your profound interest in this upcoming conference, I have a few more details to share with you so you can have more insight on the conference and what the church stands for as a whole.
  St Agnes, Kennington Park is a Church of England parish church and we worship here in the catholic tradition. This means that the sacraments are very important to us, particularly the Mass and Holy Baptism. At Mass we receive the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ made present in the bread and wine consecrated through the liturgical action of priest and people. At Holy Baptism we are born again in the Spirit and begin our journey of faith by being incorporated into the life of the Church.
   It is due to this age-long ritual of giving lectures that we have decided to keep lectures going though the type of lectures has evolved over the years we are proud to say we are keeping the hope alive! It is due to this that we are hosting the conference come 5th, 6th & 7th of November 2019 with about 550-600 people in attendance and we are pleased to notify you that you have been chosen by our Event Organizing Committee to speak at this event on recommendation of a staff of one of our sponsors, the YMF outreach and after checking your credentials and after reading blogs about you, we received the Lords direction to invite you to speak in this event and we also believe you are as well more than capable to deliver in this occasion, We have decided among the Event Organizing Committee to invite you to this program.
   Since I was inaugurated as the Presiding Minister of this esteemed church, God has being helping us to keep hope and monuments alive and we have also being able to change the face of Christianity, and the church having a whole lot of history attached to it, for one, the site of the oldest stained glass and home to the then Venerable Bede (the scientist) and one of the oldest churches in this part, we also have about the oldest organ in England as well as the Saxon crypt and we also have an history with the river Don.
   Sending out the invitation to you is by virtue of Gods bearing plus human recommendation, We need you to use your wealth of experience to sensitize the congregation, We organized this conference and workshop also in the hope of trying to re-organize the Church and further extend our impacts, So we can have people listen and be inspired by speakers like yourself on topics ranging from business growth , surviving in a bad economy, Futuristic speakers , family matters, to healthy living, which is why we chose you to speak at this event as a keynote speaker. 
   The conference theme has been carefully chosen by the Lords’ inspiration due to the backdrop of the present situation in the United Kingdom and this year’s conference has been tagged. ‘Big things: How to Start small’
  You can email us the keynote you would like to speak on as we would want you to be convenient with the keynote topic so we decided it would be better you choose it yourself as long as its motivational and inspiring! We will as well need your bio to start design posters as well as hand bills,   
  We are inviting you so you can inspire this people, teach them how to triumph over the deflating effects of set-backs & self-doubt, how to break free from whatever is keeping them “small”, and become empowered by their challenges, rather than victimized. And most importantly, how to start great things with small efforts and steadfastness
  We would like to know your standard speaking fee for this engagement as we do indeed have a sponsor, So we can negotiate this I believe, Our fees are based on budget and we are not biased with our speakers fee, We budget for every speaker according to what the Event Organizing committee deem fit, But we will also be glad to negotiate.
  All travel arrangements such as Flight fare, Speaking fee deposit as well as Hotel accommodation will be taken care of by us as soon as you honor this invitation. The events committee will send you all binding documents including a Letter of Invitation and Contract Agreement as well.
  Email us in ample time any questions you may have so we can move ahead.
Peace & Kindness,
Fr. Paul Ensor
St Agnes Place
London, 
SE11 4BB
United Kingdom

It is for real! What happened next …

My heart skipped a beat. They appeared to have read my blogs! They wanted me to keynote (!) AND they were willing to not only pay me a speaking fee, but also fly me over and pay for my accommodation!

I will filled with gratitude!
I was stunned, but also excited. Immediately I started drafting my opening comments in my head as I did the dishes.

But something also did not feel 100% right.

So that is when I started the sleuthing. I proceeded to do a little more digging and a lot more due diligence.

Will the real Fr. Ensor please stand up?

As a result of a couple of hours investigating on the internet, a few phone calls to the UK, a little help from Google maps, I received an email back from the very kind real pastor of St Agnes Church confirming that I was indeed being targeted and in the middle of a scam:

Paul Ensor <frpaulensor@btconnect.com>

Dear Karenza,

I’m afraid the e-mail you received is a scam.

There are a lot of similar invitations being issued at the moment.

With my best wishes,
Fr Paul

 

Hoping this blog will have saved you hours of wasted energy and money. Wishing you all the best.

CREDIT & THANKS; DEFINITIONS & RESOURCES:

 

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