Most Americans embrace the philosophy of helping others in their time of need. In every disaster — whether it is in this country or anywhere in the world — Americans are there to help those who need a helping hand. Unfortunately, there are those who take advantage of this, which has led to an ever-growing problem with charity fraud.
One of the more popular charity causes is to support the public service organizations, which are on the front lines of protecting the rest of us. Sadly enough, charity fraudsters are impersonating organizations that raise money to support fire fighters, policemen, and members of the armed forces.
Often, the line between an outright scam and the deceptive marketing of charitable causes is a little blurry. There are a lot of services-for-profit that market charitable causes for a cut of the proceeds. Unfortunately, some of them get too greedy when taking their cut.
To combat this growing problem, the Federal Trade Commission, along with dozens of state law enforcement officials, announced Operation False Charity on May 20th. Operation False Charity is a crackdown on fraudulent telemarketers, who claim to be gathering money on behalf of police, firefighters and veteran’s charities.
In keeping with the FTC tradition of educating the public, they are also releasing a lot of educational materials about charity fraud. They even provide a lot of these materials in Spanish.
Warning signs of scams, and what you should do about them:
• High pressure pitches. Reject them: It’s okay to hang up.
• A “thank you” for a pledge you don't remember making. Be skeptical. Scam artists will lie to get your money.
• Requests for cash. Avoid giving cash donations.
• Charities that offer to send a courier or overnight delivery service to collect your money.
• Charities that guarantee sweepstakes winnings in exchange for a contribution.
• Charities that spring up overnight, especially those that involve current events like natural disasters, or those that claim to be for police officers, veterans, or firefighters. They probably don't have the infrastructure to get your donations to the affected area or people.
To assist the public in learning how to avoid being taken when giving money to a charitable cause, the FTC has a lot of tips to identify a potential scam. Here again, these tips are provided in Spanish, too.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
An article that hits home. You wouldn't believe the number of phony requests we get everyday in our business. A good way to tell is to request a call back number. If they won't give one, it's likely a boilerplate operation. Or ask for a supervisor. If you get a hang-up, you'll know you've been fished.
2 - smartalek
Ms Huspak's suggestion is an excellent one -- but one that I forget to apply all too often when I'm subjected to scam calls at work. (At home, I'm usually focused enough to remember.)
I believe it is the case that there are lists in circulation among the Bad Guys of names / phone numbers / e-mail addresses of anyone and everyone who has ever fallen for any kind of scam -- or even not fallen for one, but who have responded to some kind of come-on to the point of providing the would-be scamster with a fone number or e-mail address that they didn't already have (or, if they did, having that data point tagged as more target-able)*.
If you're on the receiving end of a higher number or rate of possible scam invites than other people you know, it's an indication you might be on such a list somewhere. Compare your experiences with friends, family, colleagues -- and on sites that list scams (there are quite a few, easily Google-able). If you get more solicitations than the norm, you might consider even changing your phone number, e-mail address, etc.
Finally, remember that the elderly are often especially targeted by scamsters -- and often more successfully, for a number of reasons. (They may not be as used to the wired world as people who grew up in it, and may not have as much skepticism and/or defensive responses ready to deploy; their memories may not be as complete and reliable as those of younger folks; if they live alone, they may not have immediate cautionary feedback from someone noticing what's going on with their phone calls / e-mail; etc, etc.)
If you have relatives / friends / colleagues (of any age, but esp on the older side) who might be vulnerable, it might be helpful to talk with them, send along cautionary e-mails, point them at scam-list websites, &c.
*Along these lines, it took me over a year after getting my first internet account to realize that my sending angry responses to the ubiquitous Nigerian 419-scam e-mails was actually increasing the rate at which I received them -- because it confirmed to the scammers that the particular e-mail address I was using was real, current, and active.