National Criminal Intelligence Service warns of fake tsunami appeals
Howard Lake | 12 January 2005 | News
The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) have identified a number of web and email scams set up to cash in on the tsunami emergency appeals.
NCIS is warning of at least three types of email scams. First, criminals are sending unsolicited emails offering to locate, for a fee, family members who may have victims of the disaster. Secondly, unsolicited emails asking for money to be deposited in overseas bank accounts in the name of charities that turn out to be non-existent. Thirdly, ‘phishing’ emails which try to acquire personal or financial information in an effort to retrieve large amounts of inheritance funds tied up in relation to the tsunami disaster.
Other criminals have set up websites masquerading as charity websites, soliciting donations. At least one fraudulent site contains an embedded object that can infect computers with a virus if accessed.
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NCIS has published advice to the public on how to avoid falling for these scams.
Any suspicious tsunami appeal-related communications should be forward to NCIS at forward the details to NCIS at
ts**********@nc**.uk
.
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.