Fraudsters target charity’s online payments system
Howard Lake | 21 May 2013 | News
The Jack & Jill Children's Foundation in Ireland has had to return more than €130,000 in donations in recent weeks after its website was targeted as part of a credit card scam, according to the Irish Times.
The children’s charity said it had provided rebates on more than 1,000 fraudulent paymentsmade via its website 22 March and 30 April.
As many charities have experienced, charity websites are often targeted by fraudsters in order to make a small donation to check that the stolen card details are correct. Credit card users often don't spot or question a modest donation, whereas they would report any large purchase or expenditure.
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Stolen credit cards that can be demonstrated to function have a higher value to other criminals.
Jack & Jill Children's Foundation's Chief Executive Jonathan Irwin said there had been a steady flow of such transactions over the past 15 months but that the level of activity had increased recently. On one day in April it had received 190 such donations worth more than €42,000 in total.
He added that the foundation had notified its payment processor, Realex, about the issue. Not surprisingly, he said €130,000 was a significant sum to the charity, which has an annual budget of around €3 millon.
Photo: Credit card security by Chad McDermott on Shutterstock.com
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.