DAANTJIE – An irate pastor said he could not comprehend how people could do evil in order to accumulate money for their selfish needs.
Past Jeremiah Mabunda of Alliance Church was disturbed by a perpetrator who had hacked his cellphone number and sent messages to his contacts, mostly church members, asking for money and airtime.
The man of the cloth said it all started when an unidentified person called him on Sunday morning, hurling all sorts of insults at him for no apparent reason.
He said he then switched off his phone and suspects that was when the caller did a SIM swap.
Mabunda was surprised when he received a call on his other line from a church member who told him she would deposit the money. When he asked her what she was talking about, she told him she was responding to an SMS he had sent earlier in which he had asked for R1 000.
Another church member, Ms Thoko Nkosi, confirmed she had received a message from the pastor’s number in which she was asked for airtime.
“I sent R110 worth of airtime and when I called to check if the pastor had received it, there was no answer. Instead I received a message saying I should just communicate via SMS which I did, thinking that the man of God was only busy,” said Nkosi.
She said she then received another message stating that the pastor had lost his valuables and needed
R1 000. “Fortunately Mabunda called me before I could send it,” she said. Unfortunately for another member who did not want to be identified, she had already deposited money for “the pastor” via the Shoprite Money Market when she discovered it was a scam.
Mabunda sent out a stern warning to his church members to not respond to any message from him asking for any kind of assistance, especially financial help.
“That is not how I operate, I never take money from my church and I will never do that. This is a spiritual battle that is trying to divert our attention from the breakthrough we just had during a powerful revival,” he said. He added he reported the matter to Vodacom and it discontinued the number.
