We want to do everything possible to protect your congregants, so we’ve added scam risk alerts for member join requests to help spot potentially suspicious accounts before adding someone to a closed group. These alerts give admins and leaders clear signals when an account looks suspicious, so they can pause and review before adding someone to a closed group.
(this feature is fully released for Groups admin/Church Center web, and rolling out over the next few days for Church Center iOS/Android)
How they work
When someone requests to join a group, Groups automatically evaluates the request for potential scam signals and displays alerts if suspicious activity is detected.
These new alerts are designed to be a safety net that works in the background while leaders keep focusing on ministry, not threat analysis. By combining multiple strong signals, Groups can quietly surface the riskiest accounts to your team at the moment they’re making a decision. At the same time, we intentionally avoid exposing the exact triggers in the UI, so scammers cannot reverse‑engineer the system.
Risk levels:
Suspicious activity – a cautionary alert that suggests taking a closer look before approving.
High scam risk – a stronger warning that this account is likely unsafe to add to the group.
These alerts are shown to admins on the web side of Groups and also leaders on the Church Center iOS/Android apps (2026.2.11 or newer) and Church Center web.
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Why this matters
Scam attempts against churches can occur, and small choices in your tools can either open doors for fraud or quietly shut them. Before these alerts, a motivated scammer only needed a leader to approve a single request to gain access to a group’s member list, copy email addresses, and start sending convincing, targeted messages that impersonate pastors or staff. That puts your congregants at risk of financial and identity scams, and it can also damage trust in your church and in Planning Center if scam emails start coming “from” your groups.
Over time, this should reduce the number of scammers who ever make it into your groups, lower the volume of scam and spam email sent through Planning Center, and help prevent scenarios where email providers start to distrust mail from your church. Most importantly, it gives your admins and leaders a clearer, more confident way to say “yes” to real people and “no” to bad actors—keeping your groups open, welcoming, and safe for everyone.
We’d love to hear what you think and what you’d like to see next. Reach us any time at: support@planningcenter.com
🧡 Team Groups