Same story. Same dead mother from the drunk driver. Claimed he had doubts in God. Said he met me a few weeks ago and introduced me to his wife and two daughters. His car is dead on the side of the road and needs Greyhound bus ticket to get home. Gave me exact amount of $124 that he needs to get back. Called our emergency pager number. Said the number he was calling from was his dead mother's cell. Claimed he was at a Denny's on the side of the road. Asked him to provide address of his home in Albuquerque where our church is. He gave me an actual address of residence in Abq. Asked for a local phone number, and he claimed that he had a prepaid phone number that didn't have a local area code. Told him about his info wasn't in our church database, and never heard from him again. Lame.
Today, he said he was Scott Coren, that he was in FL having just packed up the belongings of his mother who had been killed by a drunk driver. 40 miles from the Florida Turnpike, his car threw a rod. He asked for money to be sent to the Western Union office in Mt Dora, FL for bus fare for him and his wife and two girls. Early in the conversation he said he, his wife and his 2 daughters had worshiped with us (we have no record of this). "Scott" called again and I told he was busted.
At 6:00pm "scott" called my house. Normally we are at church, but I haven't been feeling well and stayed home tonight. He gave me the exact same story as Pastor G related and when I asked him to tell me again where I met his family, he told me the city. I haven't been the Pastor of that church since the end of April. It is a very small, about 40, church and I called to check with the treasurer about anyone fitting that description having been there. There is no record of his family or him being anywhere near the church. Watch out for Scott.
He has now his operation to Minnesota. Scott C(K)oren called the church saying his mom had been hit by a drunk driver and killed and needed money to go to the funeral. He said he'd been to the church and knew the pastor. He was told the pastor is out and to call again. Happily waiting for his return phone call. :-)
Our church in western Washington state received a voice mail from Scott at this 407 number wanting to talk to someone about "a debt." I tried calling the number, but got no answer, so left a message. This was before I checked the web, and found this site. Thank you so much for writing about your experiences, above. I will know how to respond if he does call again.