Earthquake Relief and Recovery Efforts in Haiti – True Or False, Know Which Ones to Use Or Lose

Posted by admin on June 11th, 2010 filed in General

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Former Presidents Bush and Clinton went to GoDaddy to set up websites to collect donations for relief and recovery efforts in Haiti. Bush and Clinton weren't alone. Over 400 domain names were registered in a week following the disaster in Haiti with website names that refer to Haiti with names that include "earthquake," "help," "victim," "survivor" and "aid." While the response to help is amazing, givers need to beware that even in, and sometimes especially in, times of crisis, not all of those that seek donations are doing so on the up and up.

Art Taylor, president of the Wise Giving Alliance at the Better Business Bureau (BBB), explains on their website that "Whenever there is a natural disaster, there are two things you can count on. The first is the generosity of Americans to donate time and money to help victims, and the second is the appearance of poorly run, and in some cases fraudulent, charities."

There were both great relief efforts and scams after the Asian tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since it only takes a few dollars to register a domain name, givers really need to beware. There are already several e-mail phishing scams circulating into people's inboxes.

Have You Received One of These E-Mail Phishing Scams?

One e-mail phishing scam sends emails that appear to be from the "British Red Cross Society." Even UNICEF is being targeted and imitated in an email message that attempts to scam you by using a familiar name. Another email scam comes in the form of an email from a "Haiti Disaster Response Agency in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This one too is a phishing scam.

No doubt there are other email phishing scams circulating that attempt to pull on your heartstrings and ultimately your wallet. So many want to give but yet don't want to get scammed.

Identifying Haiti Earthquake Relief Phishing Scams

*Remember that legitimate charities do not solicit donations through e-mail messages.

*Phishing scams that often originate overseas commonly have misspellings and poor grammar

*You can't rely solely on your email or spam filter to weed out subject lines like "HELP THE CHILDREN IN HAITI...DONATE NOW."

Scams won't just show up in your email inbox. Collection "efforts" have showed up on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook as well. It is so important to REALLY know your FRIENDS on these social networking sites. Make sure when you friend a relief "effort," that you really know who the "efforts" are benefiting.

Giving online can be an easy and convenient way to give and the relief and recovery efforts in Haiti are certainly a worthy cause.

What can you do to protect yourself from spams and scams imitating relief for Haiti?

1. The FBI warns to exercise "due diligence" before making a donation. They offer these 6 tips to stay safe when making a donation in a press release of Jan. 13, 2009.

2. Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy advises givers to "target groups with strong track records in the area" and "donate to aid organizations that know Haiti, understand the needs of Haitians, and have well-organized distribution systems for actually delivering that aid."

3. Ask yourself, is this charity "on the ground?" Charities that already have a presence in Haiti will be able to respond quicker and more effectively than those needed to make arrangements or ask permission to be involved in relief and recovery efforts.

Wondering where to do your research? Go to trusted sites like Charity Navigator or the BBB web site to check out charities. Also, the (AIP) American Institute of Philanthropy lists approximately 25 organizations that are top rated in the Haitian relief effort. Their ratings are based on the ability to spend at least 75% of its budget on program services.

4. Beware of too good to be true. Beware of claims that 100% of donations go towards the Haiti relief effort. Even credit cards charge a fee that can take a bite out of your donation.

5. Know where your money is going and ask questions. Is this charity providing direct relief or are they raising money to pass on?

An example of the charitable middleman is the AT&T text donation effort. While it is convenient you may want to simply send your money to the Red Cross and cut out the middleman.

If you think you have been a victim of a charitable collection scam, file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership of the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which has been designed to track and match related online criminal complaints. Haitians need your help and no one should get away with scams that thwart true efforts for relief in Haiti.

Lisa Carey is a contributing author for Identity Theft Secrets: prevention and protection. You can get tips on Identity theft protection, software, and monitoring your credit as well as learn more about the secrets used by identity thieves at the Identity Theft Secrets blog.

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