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Florida's attorney general has already filed a fraud lawsuit against a man who started one of the earliest networks of Web sites - katrinahelp.com, katrinadonations.com and others - that stated they were collecting donations for storm victims.In Missouri, a much wider constellation of Internet sites - with names like parishdonations.com and katrinafamilies.com - displayed pictures of the flood-ravaged South and drove traffic to a single site, InternetDonations.org, a nonprofit entity with apparent links to white separatist groups.
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By the end of last week, Ms. Landford's group had logged dozens of Katrina-related swindles and spam schemes. The frauds ranged from opportunistic marketing (one spam message offered updates on the post-hurricane situation, with a link that led to a site peddling Viagra) to messages said to be from victims, or families of victims.
"This letter is in request for any help that you can give," reads one crude message that was widely distributed online. "My brother and his family have lost everything they have and come to live with me while they looks for a new job."
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On Sunday, the Internet security company Websense issued an alert regarding a phishing campaign that lured users to a Web site in Brazil that was made to look like a page operated by the Red Cross. Users who submitted their credit card numbers, expiration dates and personal identification numbers via the Web form were then redirected to the legitimate Red Cross Web site, making the ruse difficult to detect. The security company Sophos warned of a similar phishing campaign on Monday.
Those who prey upon the goodwill of people who want to help the victims of a massive natural disaster need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
These criminals damage the public's trust with regards to charitable giving over the Internet.
If this was the Old West, they would be hung from a tree as a warning to others. The best we can hope for today is that they are put in a cell with a 300-pound anal rapist with a scorching case of herpes...
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