{"id":16735,"date":"2019-10-30T13:10:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T21:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/30\/news-10474\/"},"modified":"2019-10-30T13:10:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T21:10:17","slug":"news-10474","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/30\/news-10474\/","title":{"rendered":"Help prevent disaster donation scams from causing more misery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 20:36:21 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a sad day when we have to warn people about <a href=\"http:\/\/suindependent.com\/learn-spot-charity-scam-international-charity-fraud-awareness-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">medical charity scams<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cpapracticeadvisor.com\/tax-compliance\/news\/21111130\/irs-warns-of-charity-fraud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tax fakeouts<\/a>, or even have a week <a href=\"http:\/\/suindependent.com\/learn-spot-charity-scam-international-charity-fraud-awareness-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dedicated to foiling charity fraud<\/a>\u2014but here we are. With so many natural disasters occurring, from wildfires in California to tornadoes in Dallas, disaster donation scams remain a top resource for scammers looking for free cash.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, disaster donation scams are nothing new. Back in 2013, I spent many hours tracking and <a href=\"https:\/\/news.softpedia.com\/news\/Users-Warned-of-Typhoon-Haiyan-Scams-398990.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shutting down fake charity scams<\/a> focused on Typhoon Haiyan and many more. Some of those tricks from way back when are still in use, and we need to do what we can to inform and ward off potential attacks.<\/p>\n<h3>Avoiding fake disaster donation scams: part 1<\/h3>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/news\/11783431\/how-to-avoid-donation-scams-after-a-disaster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">handy list of tips<\/a> has been posted to KQED, detailing all the ways you can steer clear of these scams. While many of them may seem obvious to regular readers of this blog, there are always folks out there who haven&#8217;t heard of these, much less realize that people are actively trying to rip them off through charitable causes.<\/p>\n<p>If you have relatives who donate after a disaster (or just donate generally), feel free to send this post their way. To summarize the tips quickly, and of particular note:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keep track of payments to charitable organizations<\/li>\n<li>Watch your payment method: don&#8217;t make donations via cash, gift card, or by wiring money<\/li>\n<li>Steer clear of pressure\u2014especially in relation to paying \u201cas soon as possible\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Avoiding fake disaster donation scams: part 2<\/h3>\n<p>I\u2019d also like to add some of my own suggestions, based on things I\u2019ve experienced while tackling these scams and talking about them at events through the years.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Door-to-door visits should always be treated with caution. At the bare minimum, they should have a recognisable badge, and a way to verify they are who they say they are. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever run into a house call where you couldn\u2019t take a leaflet or web address and go make the donation in your own time.If they really, desperately need the money now? Ask yourself why and then do some digging once they\u2019ve gone. If you think it\u2019s all a bit suspicious after that, report it to the most appropriate contact point.<\/li>\n<li>Cold calling is a popular past-time of donation scammers. It\u2019s easier than ever to spoof caller ID, so simply matching numbers to legitimate sources on official websites is not 100 percent foolproof. I\u2019ve mentioned the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/fact-check\/hurricane-sandy-fema-cleanup-crews\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">infamous FEMA cleanup crews<\/a> in the past, and they\u2019re often one of the first scams to hit the ground running. Be on the lookout for similar fakeouts involving Red Cross, United Nations, UNICEF, and more. If it\u2019s a big name, it\u2019s a potential target.Again: don\u2019t be pressured into handing over payment details to cold callers. It\u2019s worth noting that fake websites abound, <a href=\"http:\/\/sunbeltblog.eckelberry.com\/save-japan-websites-be-careful\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">both on free and paid hosting<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Scammers will often pretend to be a charity organisation, sending missives claiming to be Red Cross or Salvation Army, or pretty much anyone else they think may be relevant to a disaster. Nothing odd there. However, what they will do is frequently include a real email address in their request for money. Why? To keep things looking as real as possible.The sting in the tail is where they also insist you CC an email address belonging to the scammer when you send bank details, because \u201chigh server load\u201d may mean the real address never gets the reply. They\u2019ll also request you give them a week or two to reply as they\u2019re experiencing high volume of mail. This is also just a way to get you to leave them alone for a week as they happily plunder your bank account without question.<\/li>\n<li>Scammers will exploit the fear of lost\/missing relatives to make more money. They\u2019ll post up pictures of missing people culled from news services and ask for money to \u201chelp find them.\u201d They\u2019ll make use of those fun automatic newspaper headline generators to present you with fake headlines about rewards if only you send X amount of cash to Y (also a tactic used by <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/cybercrime\/2018\/01\/of-princes-and-perpetrators\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">419 scammers<\/a>).Relatives will naturally post lots of personal information to social media, and scammers will happily use that, too, in their social engineering exploits. I saw this a lot during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/guides\/z9whg82\/revision\/4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Typhoon Haiyan<\/a>, a problem exacerbated by people not really being familiar with genuine ways to locate missing people. Myself and others made extensive use of <a href=\"http:\/\/google.org\/crisismap\/a\/gmail.com\/TyphoonYolanda\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google\u2019s crisis map<\/a>&nbsp;and their <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20131116014751\/http:\/google.org\/personfinder\/2013-yolanda\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">person finder<\/a>&nbsp;to help steer people away from fakes.Note that these services are <a href=\"https:\/\/google.org\/personfinder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">still operational<\/a> whenever they may be needed, and there are <a href=\"https:\/\/familylinks.icrc.org\/en\/Pages\/home.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">many other ways<\/a> to attempt reunification without being ripped off.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, never underestimate how weird the scams may be in their attempt to pull the rug from under you. \u201cWhale crashes into building\u201d was a <a href=\"http:\/\/sunbeltblog.eckelberry.com\/another-whale-smashes-into-building-tsunami-scam-on-facebook\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">popular social media scam<\/a> back in 2011, because the more sensational-sounding viral a video you have the better. \u201cEarthquake relief\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/sunbeltblog.eckelberry.com\/japan-earthquake-relief-and-young-girl-commits-suicide-facebook-apps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via the promise of a few clicks<\/a> went a long way to making someone money and not much else. There\u2019s \u201cmiracle escapes\u201d which often aren\u2019t, rogue installs, and and even <a href=\"http:\/\/sunbeltblog.eckelberry.com\/spambots-promote-radiation-health-guides-on-twitter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter spambots firing out links<\/a> to expensive \u201cradiation health\u201d ebooks. They&#8217;ll do whatever it takes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Report scammers<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;ll leave you with a few more links, so you can report anything suspicious that comes your way, or at least use the below as a way to get your information where it needs to be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scamwatch.gov.au\/types-of-scams\/fake-charities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Scamwatch<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.consumer.ftc.gov\/articles\/0074-giving-charity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FTC<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tradingstandardsecrime.org.uk\/charity-donation-fraud\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Trading Standards<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/guidance\/protect-your-charity-from-fraud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UKGOV<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/news\/stories\/bogus-charity-operator-sentenced-101918\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FBI<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Scammers hope a combination of tragedy and your sympathy will provide them with the keys to your bank account. Any and all donations given to criminals are potentially causing misery and loss of life where the money is actually needed, so it&#8217;s down to all of us to step up and tackle this scourge head on.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2019\/10\/help-prevent-disaster-donation-scams-from-causing-more-misery\/\">Help prevent disaster donation scams from causing more misery<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2019\/10\/help-prevent-disaster-donation-scams-from-causing-more-misery\/\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 20:36:21 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<table cellpadding='10'>\n<tr>\n<td valign='top' align='center'><a href='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2019\/10\/help-prevent-disaster-donation-scams-from-causing-more-misery\/' title='Help prevent disaster donation scams from causing more misery'><img src='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/shutterstock_676050376.jpg' border='0'  width='300px'  \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign='top' align='left'>Scammers will stop at nothing\u2014not even a tragic natural disaster\u2014for a chance to cash in. We offer some helpful tips to avoid disaster donation scams.<\/p>\n<p>Categories: <\/p>\n<ul class=\"post-categories\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/category\/social-engineering\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Social engineering<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/419\/\" rel=\"tag\">419<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/419-scams\/\" rel=\"tag\">419 scams<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/charity\/\" rel=\"tag\">charity<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/cold-call-scams\/\" rel=\"tag\">cold call scams<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/cold-calls\/\" rel=\"tag\">cold calls<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/disaster\/\" rel=\"tag\">disaster<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/donation-scams\/\" rel=\"tag\">donation scams<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/natural-disaster\/\" rel=\"tag\">natural disaster<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/natural-disaster-scam\/\" rel=\"tag\">natural disaster scam<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/natural-disasters\/\" rel=\"tag\">natural disasters<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/phish\/\" rel=\"tag\">phish<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/phishing\/\" rel=\"tag\">phishing<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/red-cross\/\" rel=\"tag\">red cross<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/scammers\/\" rel=\"tag\">scammers<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/scamming\/\" rel=\"tag\">scamming<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/scams\/\" rel=\"tag\">scams<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/social-engineering\/\" rel=\"tag\">Social Engineering<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/social-engineering-attacks\/\" rel=\"tag\">social engineering attacks<\/a><\/p>\n<table width='100%'>\n<tr>\n<td align=right>\n<p><b>(<a href='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2019\/10\/help-prevent-disaster-donation-scams-from-causing-more-misery\/' title='Help prevent disaster donation scams from causing more misery'>Read more&#8230;<\/a>)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2019\/10\/help-prevent-disaster-donation-scams-from-causing-more-misery\/\">Help prevent disaster donation scams from causing more misery<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[10593,17139,13897,19113,11148,519,23318,23319,23320,14294,10511,3924,5646,10512,2096,10574,10510,19116],"class_list":["post-16735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-10593","tag-419-scams","tag-charity","tag-cold-call-scams","tag-cold-calls","tag-disaster","tag-donation-scams","tag-natural-disaster","tag-natural-disaster-scam","tag-natural-disasters","tag-phish","tag-phishing","tag-red-cross","tag-scammers","tag-scamming","tag-scams","tag-social-engineering","tag-social-engineering-attacks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}