World Vision counters phishing email
Howard Lake | 21 June 2007 | News
International relief and development agency World Vision has highlighted the negative impact on charities of hoax and phishing email scams. It has called for a single organisation to be empowered to deal with Internet hoaxes.
The charity is currently feeling the effects of an email that claims to come from the charity. It is being sent to smaller overseas charities, and announces that World Vision has offered them a grant of £1.5 million for
“charity development and poverty eradication”. Recipients are invited to email the sender for a grant application form which they can complete and submit to the World Vision UK office.
In fact, the message aims fraudulently to obtain bank details of partners, supporters and unconnected parties.
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“Unfortunately, email hoaxes like these are so common and there isn’t one coordinated agency which has the power to shut down operations like this”, said Justin Byworth, World Vision’s Head of International Programmes.
“We reported the issue to the hoaxer’s ISP but within hours, the hoaxer had opened a new email account. We’d like to see in place a single governing body with extensive powers to tackle the growing issue of Internet fraud and hoaxes”.
He added that World Vision had received letters from individuals in Zambia, India, Pakistan and the US, all requesting access to the £1.5 million grant they believe they have received.
“Each of these letters and emails deserves a reply but this takes up valuable time and diverts efforts from the real focus of our work. World Vision and other charities like us are in the business of creating hope. We regret someone is using our name in this instance, to create deception and disappointment for a lot of people.”
World Vision has posted a statement on its website about this hoax.
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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.