LONDON (AlertNet) - Criminals attempting to cash in on an outpouring of public generosity towards survivors of the Haiti earthquake are using online scams designed to steal charitable donations, a charity watchdog said on Wednesday.
The scams include the use of fictitious appeal websites, email appeals that falsely use the name of genuine charities, or
appeals from bogus aid groups, said the Charity Commission, the independent charity regulator for England and Wales.
"The Commission is urging the public to continue giving but to be vigilant," it said in a statement.
Images of crushed survivors trapped beneath the rubble of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince largely destroyed by last week's 7.0 magnitude quake prompted a rush of support.
Aid groups were quick to use social media such as Twitter and Facebook in fundraising efforts to deal with the impact of the worst quake to hit the Caribbean country in 200 years, as the death toll soared to tens of thousands.
People had donated $35 million within 48 hours of the natural disaster, the American Red Cross said, calling the response "unprecedented".
Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was one of the first organisations to warn citizens about the risk of being duped by Internet fraudsters in an alert on its website, posted the day after the earthquake struck.
The FBI said past tragedies and natural disasters had prompted individuals with criminal intent to solicit contributions purportedly for a charitable organisation and/or a good cause -- and urged a "critical eye".
"Fraud is a pretty nasty thing to happen to people in the best of times, but when you're taking food out of the mouths of people who are struggling for survival in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, it is pretty low," said Brendan Paddy, a spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation for 13 aid agencies.
FBI guidelines for avoiding Internet scams:
* do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) incoming e-mails, including clicking links contained within those messages
* be sceptical of individuals representing themselves as surviving victims or officials asking for donations via email or
social networking sites
* verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organisations by using various Internet-based resources that may assist in confirming the groupÂ?s existence and its nonprofit status rather than following a purported link to the site
* be cautious of emails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files because the files may contain
viruses. Only open attachments from known senders
* make contributions directly to known organisations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf to ensure contributions are received and used for intended purposes
* do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions: Providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft
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