Hackers want to catch you off guard and play on your emotions to steal from you. One of the most popular tools they use is to leverage natural and man-made disasters. They will quickly register domain names like haiti-relief.com, or save-ukraine.com and build a high-quality website to collect donations.
Your donations will actually be going to the hacker’s bank account, or even the aggressors in a war. You might be funding the people exploiting those you are trying to save!
How to make sure your donations are going to those you are trying to help:
- Donate to one of the well-known organizations that provide humanitarian relief such as the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders.
- Verify that the charity you would like to donate to is legitimate by looking it up with one of these services:
- https://www.charitywatch.org/
- https://www.charitynavigator.org/
- Do not donate to people that call you on the phone, and don’t believe the Caller ID you see on your phone, that can be faked.
Here you can find a more in-depth article on avoiding scammers when making donations:
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/giving-charity#avoid
Give with your heart, verify with your mind!