Get Ready for Haiti Relief Charity Scams

Whenever there is a disaster, like the recent earthquake in Haiti, caring people all over the world step up and donate time and money to the relief effort. Unfortunately, another less scrupulous group also mobilizes and attempts to skim off some of the money intended for the disaster victims by creating fake relief efforts. If you are one of the caring ones you have to be careful who you give your money to it may not go where you expect it to.

While we’ve heard of fake Haiti relief donation requests with subject lines like:

• “Make Your Donations Now,”
• “HELP THE CHILDREN IN HAITI … DONATE TODAY”

So far, we’ve seen very little fraudulent Haiti donation scam activity. Certainly less than any previous natural disaster in the last five years. This is perhaps due to email users becoming more wary of such fraudulent campaigns. Moreover, public and private agencies are doing a better job of pointing out the likelihood of such bogus donation requests following such events.

Even the FBI is proactively warning the public in their “Haitian Earthquake Relief Fraud Alert” on their website at: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/earthquake011310.htm

And, though we’ve seen few of these requests so far, we’d like to share a couple anti-fraud tips regarding charity donation scams ourselves (since they may very well pick up in volume at any time).

These relief scams are likely to fall into two categories:

1. Completely fake relief organizations like Email Fraudsters for Haiti Relief Fund (but perhaps not quite so obvious).
2. Phishing type campaigns that pretend to be a reputable organization like The American Red Cross.

It may seem heartless but if you get a request from an organization you haven’t heard of, just ignore them. The chances of a reputable organization that you don’t recognize of randomly emailing you to ask for money are pretty slim. And, if one actually does, they deserve to be ignored for spamming you without prior contact and approval.

If you do recognize the organization, treat the request the same way you would any other potential phishing attack. Do not respond using any of the information in the request. Instead look up their phone number or website and donate directly. Do use cash or give out personal information.

If you do suspect fraud contact the Federal Trade Commission at 1-877-382-4357 or file a complaint directly at:

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Additional Links

A few useful links to verify legitimate charities:

FTC Haiti Earthquake Donation Suggestions: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/01/haitiquake.shtm

American Institute of Philanthropy CharityWatch: CharityWatch

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Tags: fraud, phishing, scam

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 11:53 am and is filed under Message Control. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.