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Guest Post: How To Avoid Donating to a Fake Charity
In the wake of one of the largest earthquakes the world has ever seen, donations continue to come in by the thousands to help Haiti rebuild. While the outpouring of support has been tremendous, a tragedy like this is also an excellent opportunity for someone to take advantage. Charities continue to do excellent work in helping those that cannot afford to help themselves but for every legitimate organization, there seem to be two illegitimate ones.
Pinpointing a fraudulent charity can be difficult at times and it is certainly not an exact science, but knowing what to look for and how to handle your donations in the future, should ensure that the money you are donating goes to the people that need your help. The next time you are courted to make a donation, follow the tips below to avoid donating to scammers.
- Never Make a Donation Over the Phone (Unless You Initiated the Call) – Legitimate charities do have a habit of cold calling for donations so many of the calls you receive could be real, however there is no way of knowing with a simple phone call if the person on the other line is who they say they are. If you are interested in their cause, ask them for the website information and offer to mail in a donation. Giving your credit card information over the phone is never a smart idea.
- Never Make a Donation In Cash – The easiest way to lose your donation to fraud is to give them something that cannot be traced. If the organization has a booth set up, feel free to write a personal check from your online checking account. If you’re mailing in your donation, provide a money order or check written in the name of the charity. Being asked to make the donation payable to “Reggie” is an automatic no-no. For tax purposes, keeping a paper record of your donation is important. If you’re unlucky enough to donate to a scam, the IRS may audit your tax return, which is definitely something you want to avoid.
- Never Make a Donation Through Email – Charities are fearful of being labeled as spam, so sending out mass-emails looking for donations doesn’t happen. If you ever see an email from someone stating to be a charity looking for a donation, there is an extreme amount of high-risk involved. Email is extremely un-secure and the link you click on to make your donation can take you absolutely anywhere.
- Gather As Much Information As You Can – Before making a final decision, make sure you have gathered all of the available information there is on your charity of choice. Finding information can be easy, and doing any of the following should put your mind at ease:
Ask to see the organizations tax-exempt letter from the IRS. If they do not have one, or are unwilling to provide it, think twice about why.
Visit the charities website and look for things such as good grammar, a permanent street address, success stories, an outline of what the charities goals are, financial statements that tell you where the money goes and a board of directors. If you see that they are lacking many of the things above, it’s another sign that they might not be who they say they are.
Visit the IRS’s website and look them up. The IRS lists over 1.5 million charitable organizations that they recognize and if your charity isn’t on the list, time to move on.
If you think that you’ve been taken, you should immediately call the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and file a complaint. 1-877-FTC-HELP begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-877-FTC-HELP end_of_the_skype_highlighting (382-4357). Hopefully though, after reading the steps above to protect yourself, you never have a need for this phone number.
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It makes me both angry and upset when people ruthlessly exploit other people’s tragedies to lurk for the money. I will use your advice.