It started with a friendly phone call about software support. It ended up costing the church over $700 and a boatload of trouble. Just to relieve your mind, no church member’s Social Security numbers were exposed, and we’ve contacted the half dozen employees and former employees that might have been.
On May 20, 2019, our office received a call from a nice guy named Matt Roberts, claiming that he was our new Quickbooks account representative and providing a phone number for product support (note: Intuit owns Quickbooks). We wrote the number down and thought nothing of it. In March of 2020, we had an issue and called Matt. They forwarded us to Lisa, who explained that we had a corrupted file, and to fix it, we needed a new software support subscription. We thought we had all the support subscriptions we needed but, I was in a hurry that day, we couldn’t issue a payroll check until the problem was solved, and software support is always expensive. We had just switched to Windows 10 and knew that there were potential issues with corrupted files. Finally, we believed we were talking to Intuit.
We weren’t. We were talking to a shadow software support firm called QB Support Solutions. But we still did not know that. They required a $700 one year subscription and remote access to our computer to fix the problem. My office admin assistant said, “Something doesn’t seem right about this.” I should have listened. But Quickbooks is not my thing, I don’t know how to fix corrupted files, the people sounded genuine, and as I said, we were in a hurry. We paid with an e-check straight from our bank, gave them access to the computer, and they fixed it—end of the story.
Except it wasn’t. Two weeks ago we had another issue with the computer. The office admin called QB Support and got the run-around. In the meantime, we thought we had evidence that someone was trying to access the office computer without permission remotely. We finally started digging. We called Intuit directly. They fixed the problem in about an hour. That’s when we discovered that Intuit won’t call you unless you request it and they will always leave a case number for the call. QB Support Solutions is not an Intuit company or contractor, Matt and Lisa are not and never have been Intuit employees, and their phone numbers have never been Intuit numbers. We also discovered that the physical address on QB Support Solutions letterhead did not match the same on their website, GoogleMaps cannot find their physical address, and they won’t return our phone calls.
We froze all outgoing checks from our account for two days, opened a new account, consulted with an IT specialist, closed the old account, and got the computer fixed.
We got scammed. But it could have been worse
Software scams are much like spiritual scams. Jesus said the devil is a thief and a liar. The Apostle Paul warned us to be wary of the devil’s schemes. He deceived us in the garden, and he is still deceiving today. A few parallels with our spiritual lives might help us avoid both kinds.
Deception is most potent when we have a pressing need, we don’t know how to meet it, and we’re in too much of a hurry to think it through. We’re lonely but can’t find the relationship we need. We need money and don’t know how to get it. We’re goal-oriented but feel stifled. Or we need to process a paycheck but can’t make the software work.
Deception looks like the real thing and sounds genuine. It fits a pattern that worked in the past and fulfills a need in the short term. It plays on our trust. Alarm bells may sound, but we don’t have time. A short-cut appears, and we take it. In the end, it “bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.”
These may seem obvious, but a few things to do if your alarm bells are sounding:
- Listen to the alarm. Pay attention to what it is telling you. (Gal. 5:21; 6:7-8; Acts 20:31).
- Slow down. Postpone whatever is next on your list—it probably wasn’t that important anyway—and work the problem. (Prov. 19:2; 25:8).
- Dig deeper. Go to the source. Read the Scriptures. (Matt. 22:29; Acts 17:11).
- Take action. (Prov. 6:1-5; 1 Cor. 6:18; 10:14; 1Tim. 6:2-12).
dane skelton 