I am a Pastor. A man named John called our church number from this cell phone number. He said he was calling for me (by name) and that it was about a death. The number is an Orlando, FL number - and I don't know anyone in Orlando. A little research verifies that this is a scammer. Same scam, new number. Read about it here: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-407-312-0437
This is known as a "small Church scam". Minister at a Church receives a phone call about an emergency. They claim to belong to the Church & need funds. I believe that you would agree, it's next to impossible for a Minister at a small Church not to know all his parish. It's a scam.
Yep. i received a call from "John" this morning. Same story .. mother died and he needed funds to get home after his car broke down. He started by saying we met his family at our thanksgiving service and he needed help with his mothers funeral and to get back home to Illinois. Problem for him was that our church is real small and only a year old and I know every member and their family and we didn't have any visitors at our thanksgiving service. I was waiting for the money pitch and told him that I would pass it onto the members to see if they wanted to help. Sad that people try to scam churches.
We received a call from "John Thompson" this afternoon soon after we got home from church. John insisted we met him, his wife, and 2 daughters at Thanksgiving time when they visited our church in North Dakota. He repeatedly called my wife by her first name, to the point that she said it was unnatural in regular conversation. John requested that I call him back ASAP because they have had a death in the family. A google search brought us here. We will not be calling him back. His number is 407-536-0172
A man claiming to be John Thomas (or Thompson, I couldn't understand him very well) just called our home phone asking to speak to my husband about a death. He called our church by name and insisted we knew him his wife and two little girls from church. He called both my husband and me by our first names, and asked for the phone number of another church member, which I didn't share. He claimed his mother had been killed by a drunk driver and his family was in Florida for the furneral, they had just pulled out onto the interstate headed back to Texas and their car had broken down. A quick visit with our pastor and associate pastor confirmed that this man was not known to them... other than from his calls about every 6 months with the same story.