Earthquake Reduction and Recovery Efforts in Haiti - True Or False, Know Those That to Use Or Lose

Following a disastrous earthquake in help raped children in Haiti, Former Presidents Bush and Clinton went to GoDaddy to set up sites to collect contributions for relief and recovery efforts in Haiti. Clinton and Bush were not alone. Over 400 domain names were registered in per week following the disaster in Haiti with web site names that refer to Haiti with names that contain 'earthquake,' 'help,' 'victim,' 'survivor' and 'support.' While the reaction to donate to Haiti is amazing, providers need to beware that even in, and sometimes specially in, moments of crisis, not all of those that seek contributions are this on the up and up.

Art Taylor, president of the Wise Giving Alliance in the Better Business Bureau (BBB), explains on their site that 'Whenever there's a natural catastrophe, there are a couple of things it is possible to depend on. The first is the generosity of Americans to donate time and money to help patients, and the second reason is the appearance of poorly run, and in some instances fraudulent, charities.'

There have been both great relief efforts and cons after the Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Asian tsunami in 2004. As it only has a few dollars to register a domain name, providers actually need to beware. There already are many e-mail phishing cons circulating in-to people's inboxes.

Have You Received One of these simple E-Mail Phishing Scams?

One email phishing scam delivers emails that seem to be in the 'British Red Cross Society.' Even UNICEF will be imitated and focused in an mail message that attempts to con you using a familiar name. Another email con comes in the shape of an email from a 'Haiti Disaster Response Agency in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. That one also is a phishing scam.

Undoubtedly you'll find other e-mail phishing scams circulating that attempt to eventually your budget and pull on your heartstrings. A great number of want to give and yet do not want to get scammed.

Identifying Haiti Earthquake Reduction Phishing Scams

*Remember that reliable charities do not solicit donations through email messages.

*Phishing cons that frequently begin overseas frequently have bad grammar and misspellings

*You can not depend entirely on your email or spam filter to weed out subject lines like 'HELP THE CHILDREN IN HAITI...DONATE NOW.'

Cons will not only arrive in your email inbox. Collection 'efforts' have showed up on MySpace, Twitter and Face-book as-well. It is so crucial to REALLY know friends AND FAMILY on these social networking internet sites. Be sure when you friend a relief 'effort,' that you really know who the 'efforts' are benefiting.

Providing o-nline is an easy and convenient way to provide and the reduction and recovery efforts in Haiti are certainly a valuable cause.

What can you do to protect your-self from cons and spams imitating aid for Haiti?

1. The FBI warns to exercise 'due diligence' before making a donation. They offer these 6 guidelines to stay safe when coming up with a donation in a press release of Jan. 1-3, 2009.

2. Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy suggests providers to 'target groups with strong track records in the area' and 'donate to help businesses that know Haiti, understand the wants of Haitians, and have well-organized distribution systems for actually giving that aid.'

3. Think about, is this charity 'on the floor'? Charities that have a presence in Haiti will-be able to respond faster and better than those required to arrange for the money or ask permission to be involved in relief and recovery efforts.

Wondering where to do your research? Go to reliable sites like Charity Navigator or the BBB website to take a look at charities. Also, the (AIP) American Institute of Philanthropy lists around 2-5 companies which are premier within the Haitian aid effort. Their scores are based on the ability to spend at least 75-90 of its budget on pro-gram services.

4. Watch out for too good to be true. Watch out for claims that a large number of contributions go towards the Haiti relief work. Even bank cards charge a fee that can have a bite from your donation.

5. Know where your money is going and ask questions. Is this charity providing immediate relief or are they raising money to move on?

A typical example of the intermediary could be the AT&T text donation effort. Whilst it is convenient you might want to just send your cash to the Red Cross and cut out the middleman.

More information can be found on this article.

If you think you have been a victim of the charitable collection con, file a complaint with the Web Crime Complaint Center, a partnership of the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which has been designed to track and match associated online criminal problems. Haitians need your help and no-one should escape with cons that curb correct efforts for relief in Haiti.