# Christian Aid is subject of grant spam email

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/01/25/christian-aid-subject-grant-spam-email/
- Published: 2007-01-25T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The latest spam email to use a legitimate charity’s name without permission is one
that claims to come from Christian Aid’s Board of Trustees, offering £850,000 in“
charity donations/aid from the Christian Aid (UK)”.
The spam email has been engineered
to appear to come from “ch*******************@**********id.com“, which is a domain
name used by the unrelated US nonprofit “Christian Aid USA”, but in fact it comes
from the less credible “en*****************************@******co.uk“.

The recipient of the charity’s apparent largesse is addressed only as “Dear Sir/
Madam” and the spam is full of common hallmarks of such messages including widespread
misuse of capital letters and a careless approach to accurate spelling and grammar.

For example: “Christian Aid (U.K.) a Multi-Million Pounds NGO group was Established
with the objective Of Human Growth, Educational and Community

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development.”

Apparently the grant comes from “the Christian Aid (U.K.) in conjunction with the
European Council” and there is a total of “Eight Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds
Sterling as specific Donations/Grants to 10 lucky International recipients world
wide in different Categories for Business development and Social.”

Recipients can apparently use these funds freely “for your business And educational
development, charitable work and your Community development at large”, which would
suggest that Christian Aid’s charitable objectives have been stretched somewhat.

Even better is the rationale for being awarded such a ‘grant’: “Your Email was selected
Based on an internet random Selection exercise”, a new approach to professional 
grant-making.

As with all such email scams, the sender advises secrecy on the part of the recipient:“
You are by all means advised,To keep this whole information confidential

until you Have collected your grant, this is to avoid double And unqualified claim,
due to beneficiaries informing Third parties on cash grant donation.”

UK Fundraising decided not to comply with this secrecy rubbish, so looks like we
won’t get our £850,000. At the same time we’ll avoid the attentions of a scam artist
trying to convince us to part with tens of thousands of pounds before we get our
money.

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