You have been requested to donate to the relief effort for the recent tragic earthquake in Haiti. You want to and plan to donate money, but you are confused as to where and how. So far the disaster is just three days old and you have already received 4 different email solicitations all supposedly from either the Red Cross or Salvation Army. You have been contacted in your Facebook account and there are numerous donation requests going around twitter and just now you received a phone call requesting a donation. How can you be sure that the money you donate goes to the organization you want it to go to- in other words, how do you keep from being scammed?
Disaster relief scams can include "phishing" emails that attempt to either get you to send money to a phony organization or to collect your personal or financial information for identity theft purposes. Scammers can say they are victims of the disaster and request direct financial aid for themselves. More insidious are the scammers who contact families of victims offering to help for a fee- maybe to locate a lost family member. The one thread in common to all the con artists is that they want to take advantage of a disastrous situation.
Human disasters will often time bring out the best in people as a society. However, it is also an unfortunate state of human nature that the same disaster will bring out the scammers looking to use the disaster as an opportunity to take advantage of our generosity. What can you do to protect yourself and make sure your donations get to the right place? There are several simple steps that you can take to protect your donations.
Unless you are on their mailing list, big name organizations such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Doctors without Borders, or Unicef will not contact you directly for specific donations. Even if you are on their list, there is a good chance that you still would not be directly contacted shortly after the disaster. Therefore, any emails from the larger organizations need to be checked out carefully and looked at with skepticism.
If you want to donate directly to these organizations, then check your local phone book for the local chapter and call them directly to find out how you can donate. It is always safer when you initiate the contact.
With smaller organizations that you may or may not have heard about, check them out with the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org). Visit their websites but go there directly rather than clicking on a website link in the email. And, do not just go by how a website looks, as sophisticated scammers can throw up an authentic looking website that appears to be a legitimate charity within a couple hours of a disaster. Scammers will sometimes just change a previous website from an earlier disaster to reflect the current disaster's needs and amazingly, they have their new charity up and running.
This does not mean that every donation solicitation you receive is bogus. Many of the web addresses will be legitimate, but you just have to be aware and check further prior to clicking on that "donate" button. In a future article, I will discuss some specific things to look for in an email and specific steps to take to protect yourself from being scammed.
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