The holidays are a prime time of year for giving to a charity. And with COVID-19 there are many deserving charities that will use your money wisely. However, scammers try to take advantage of your good will by posing as legitimate charities to steal your money and your identification.
Scammers use several tricks to separate you from your money.
·
They
may pressure you to decide quickly to donate.
·
They
may thank you for a donation that you did not make.
·
They
can spoof the Caller ID of a legitimate charity or a phone number from a local
area code.
·
Some
use names that are similar to legitimate charities.
·
They
may make vague, sentimental claims with no specifics on how your donation would
be used.
·
They
may claim that a donation is tax-deductible when it is not.
·
Sometimes,
they may guarantee sweepstakes winnings in exchange for a donation. This offer
is a scam and is illegal.
You can take the following steps to avoid being victimized by a charity scammer,
· Make
an annual charity plan. Take some time to think about what charities you would
like to give to. Do some research on those charities. Make a budget of how much
you want to spend toward donations and how much you will give to each of your
charities.
· Before
donating, check out the charity. There are several web sites that can give you
information about legitimate charities:
o
The
Office of the Washington State Secretary of State- https://www.sos.wa.gov/charities/donors.aspx
o
Charity
Navigator- https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1004
o
Charity
Watch- https://www.charitywatch.org/
o
GuideStar-
https://www2.guidestar.org/
o
Give.org-
https://give.org/
· Be
wary of unsolicited donation requests. Assume any email or phone solicitations
are scams. Do not click on any links in emails. If you do receive a request
from an unknown charity that you think you might be interested in, conduct a separate
search in your browser with the name of the charity plus the word “scam” and at
the above websites.
· Do
not trust Caller ID or URL’s in web searches. Scammers can spoof phone numbers
of legitimate charities. Scammers also play games with web addresses with
subtle changes to them to make them look like a real charity’s web address.
For more
information on how to protect yourself from a charity scam check out the following
resources,
Federal Trade Commission:
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/how-donate-wisely-and-avoid-charity-scams
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0074-giving-charity
USA.gov:
https://www.usa.gov/donate-to-charity#item-211606
AARP:
https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/charity.html
The Herald:
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/where-to-give-and-where-to-find-help-directory-of-services/
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