I think the idea was that the people who would consider scanning recently might assume that someone scanned previously, based on the popularity of the site, and decide against it based on that.
Though I'd think you'd be able to verify an assumption like that.
It's pretty tough to verify such things. We don't make reliable records of the absence of something, and while someone at the church would probably know where the records of such a thing occurring were - it would take time to find that person. Not to mention its no ones job to verify assumptions on what things have/have not been done.
Which is a good reminder that many things we don't know about are because no one has ever bothered to try, or failing that, they haven't tried hard enough.
Though I'd think you'd be able to verify an assumption like that.