Helping Haiti? Give Wisely.
January 14th, 2010
by David Vladeck, Guest Blogger
Sometimes, the most difficult situations bring out the best in people. In the aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti, many people are making financial contributions to support charitable organizations helping with the recovery and reconstruction.
In the past, the FTC has investigated and prosecuted scammers who pretended to represent charities during a crisis. Given this experience, we hope you’ll put some thought into choosing which charity to support.
Our Charity Checklist consumer alert offers tips to ensure that donation dollars benefit the people and organizations you want to help. Be wary of appeals that tug at the heart strings, but are short on details about how disaster victims will benefit.
You don’t have to give to someone who calls, writes or emails you out of the blue. It’s a good idea to give through a website or phone number that you know is legitimate.
To help with relief efforts in Haiti, the U.S. Department of State advises that you can visit InterAction to contribute. Or text “HAITI” to “90999″ and $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross, charged to your cell phone bill.
Fake-charity scammers are among the most despicable rip-off artists we encounter. It’s difficult to comprehend how someone could see a catastrophe affecting millions as an opportunity to steal, but it happens. So before you give, take a moment to ensure that you’re supporting a legitimate charity.
And if you think you’ve seen a scam, please report it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 11:44 am and is filed under Scam Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Okay the U.S. Department of State hyperlink in this post leads to the main website. I don’t see anywhere that the Department of State refers contributions to InterAction though… can you provide further reference?
Hi, inquisitive. If you visit http://www.state.gov/p/wha/ci/ha/earthquake/index.htm and scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see that the State Department does list InterAction as one way to contribute to the recovery efforts in Haiti.
INTRODUCTION
In 1492 Christopher Columbus wrote about Haiti: “The most beautiful in the world”. Certainly, Haiti is a wonderful country in the Caribbean. I think that has a special beauty, with a geography and traditional culture that is totally different from all the other countries in Latin America.
How can these people take advantage of those who need their help in a time of crisis. No punishment is too severe.