New cheque scam targets charities
Howard Lake | 14 February 2004 | News
A new version of the Nigerian advanced fee scam involves the conmen sending charities a very attractive cheque for several thousand pounds.
The cheque comes from a donor with an English-sounding name, but is followed very quickly by a request to refund half of the fee due to an administrative error by the donor. When the charity does bank the cheque it finds that it is a forgery and will bounce. If the charity has refunded the sum then it will have lost several thousand pounds.
Given the majority of UK charities have annual incomes of under £10,000, losing such a fee could put them out of business. It is these small charities that the conmen are targeting.
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The Charity Commission yesterday issued an alert warning charities about this scam. One charity came close to falling prey to the conmen when it received a cheque for £4,500. The Brian Byrnes Memorial Fund, which supports Bangladeshi orphans, was contacted by a “Dr Mark Williams” who seemingly delivered on his offer of a substantial donation. Before the
charity cashed it in, it was asked to return £2,500 but to a different bank account and one that belonged to “a charity in Nigeria.”
Chairman of the charity’s trustees, Peter Byrnes, said: “It was so believable – the cheque was from a genuine bank and I spoke to the donor on the phone several times. We’re used to spotting scams, but because we received a cheque from an individual, we took
it as legitimate. I’m just relieved we didn’t make any repayment, as the cheque bounced.”
Liz Carnell, founder and director of the Yorkshire-based charity Bullying Online, has reported being targeted twice with the same scam. “I was immediately suspicious,” she said, after receiving e-mail notifications of impending donations. “I checked the IP address and found in both cases the e-mails originated from an Internet cafe in Lagos, Nigeria. In this latest case, two further emails followed which originated from Israel. A cheque arrived from Holland this morning, not
for £3,000 but for £5,500.”
What should you do if you receive such promised donations? Simon Gillespie, director of operations at the Charity Commission, said: “This is a very sinister operation because it is so plausible.
Charities should never return any donation before the cheque has cleared. These type of requests should be treated with great caution
and if trustees have any suspicions they should contact their local police or call the Commission’s helpline on 0870 333 0123. We want all charities to be alert to this scam.”
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.