No Asian tsunami appeal scams noticed yet
Howard Lake | 30 December 2004 | News
The vast scale of the South Asian tsunami and floods disaster and of the fundraising appeals mounted in response will prove a tempting opportunity for scam artists and fraudsters, although UK Fundraising has not yet come across any such attempts.
Major fundraising appeals often attract some fraudsters trying to make personal gain out of others’ misery. UK Fundraising is on the look-out for any such attempts and will report on them if we come across them.
The American Institute of Philanthropy has already issued a warning to donors to exercise caution when giving in response to the current emergency appeals. Daniel Borochoff, president of the Institute, pointed out that scams were even more likely given the appeals’ launch during the Christmas holiday, a popular time for giving.
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“This is the biggest natural disaster in history ” talk about an opportunity to take advantage of people’s good intentions,” he said.
The only evidence of any scam-like activity are a number of spam e-mails with subject lines such as “re: show your care for others”, although the message content itself is unrelated to the disaster appeal.
Other organisations have warned of the likelihood of scams arising. Free encyclopedia Wikipedia’s page on Donations for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake states in red at the top: “due to its open and collaborative nature, Wikipedia cannot guarantee the veracity of outside links or the absence of possible scams involving charities, thus the potential danger of fraud exists.”
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.