Beware of Haiti scams
To donate safely
Here are some ways you can protect yourself and your donation:
● Never respond to e-mail requests for a donation.
● Always check to make sure a charity is legitimate. The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance’s Standards for Charity Accountability, charitynavigator.org and scambuster.org have links on their sites that can help you sort out the good ones from the bad.
● Don’t open attachments unless you’re sure who sent them. Many of the malware scams use pictures of the disaster area or victims to lure you in.
● Ask lots of questions. Ask for the name, phone number and address of the charity. Is the charity registered with any organization? If so, get the registration number. Inquire what percentage of your money will actually get to Haiti. You can also designate how your donation is used.
● Be careful when you click through to a link of web site for donations; it may be phishing. Check the URL to make sure it’s legitimate. Make sure the site is an “https” secure site; look for an image of a lock on the page indicating it is a secure payment site. Scam sites don’t have those.
● Never give out personal or financial information.
● Find out if the charity has an on-the-ground presence in the affected areas. Unless the charity already has staff there, it may be difficult to get new aid workers to quickly provide assistance. See if the charity’s Web site describes what they are doing to address immediate needs.
● Avoid cash donations, if possible. Pay by debit or credit card or write a check directly to the charity.
● Don’t yield to pressure. “We feel the need to give at this time, but Haiti is going to need assistance for a long time,” Elsberry said. “If you feel pressure from a charity, that’s a sign to back off.”
● If you suspect fraud, contact the 24-hour hot line set up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) at 1-866-720-5721 or the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center known as IC3 at www.ic3.gov .
More Beware of Haiti scams | ajc.com
Powered by ScribeFire.
Comments