In March, 2012, I wrote about a scam organization that goes by the name of St. Matthew’s Church which uses questionable tactics to get people to send money in exchange for prayers.

The usual packet contains a prayer form that depicts a $500 and $1000 bill on one side with instructions to “pray over this miracle page, anointed with holy oil” for whatever amount of money they need. On the reverse side is a FINANCIAL PRAYER FORM on which a person lists their financial needs. People are then instructed to “sleep on this page” along with another prayer page that night and return it with the guarantee that they would receive all they requested, plus a free gift.

Naturally, as soon as they return it, they are bombarded by solicitations to send more money in order for their prayers to be answered. Believe it or not, a whole lot of people do so and this organization has raised millions. As I report in this article, in 2007, they were raising $6 million a month with this scam!

But not everyone is fooled. Check out this e-mail I just received from someone who knew exactly what to do with that hokey prayer rug when it arrived in his mailbox:

“I was flabbergasted to have received one of those prayer “rugs” today, and tore the silly thing up and threw it away! I then wrote a brief letter to the agency and will mail it tomorrow in their postage paid envelope. In the letter, I wrote brief recollections of late relatives who were REAL people who lived in Tulsa, and how I used to visit them.  I also explained that I am a lifelong Christian, and in my church, we believe that CORPORATE worship with REAL people is TRUE worship.”

Good for you! That’s one less dollar in the pocket of these scam artists!