Charity Navigator Cautions About Haiti Aid Scams

MAWAH, N.J. — In the hours following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Charity Navigator, the nation’s largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities, was already witnessing a proliferation of web-based donation and aid sites that may have been established to scam unsuspecting donors.

While the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12 has led to an outpouring of support from many well-meaning individuals, Chritynavigator.org notes that unfortunately, crisis situations also bring out the worst in some people.

For example, even before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, criminals were setting up websites that included the keyword Katrina (such as www.katrinahelp.com and www.katrinarelief.com) in an effort to collect money and personal information. In the weeks following the devastating storm, the FBI reported that it had identified more than 4,000 bogus websites that were attempting to capitalize on the goodwill of generous Americans.

While the organization has no official confirmation the following websites are not legitimate, the editors at Charitynavigator.org are suspicious because the domain names were registered January 13 — not even one full day after the earthquake:

haiti-earthquake.org

haitianearthquakefund.org

haitiearthquake.org

haitiearthquakefund.org

haitiearthquakerelief.org

haitiearthquakerelief2010.org

While Charity Navigator understands that people are driven to help victims of the Haiti earthquake, it strongly suggests individual donors do their own due diligence to make sure that the organizations asking for support are legitimate. One way to do so is by checking to see if the organizations have been vetted by Charity Navigator’s analyst team, and are in fact providing relief in the stricken area.

The organization also offers these common sense tips to follow, specifically if you are moved to donate to the Haitian earthquake relief effort:

*Be Leery Of People That Contact You Online Claiming To Be A Victim — Unless you personally know someone in Haiti, anyone alleging to be in this position is most likely part of a scam. Obviously, people affected by the earthquake are in no position to contact you directly for assistance.

*Delete Unsolicited Emails With Attachments — Never respond to unsolicited emails. Do not open any attachments to these emails even if they claim to contain pictures from Haiti. These attachments are probably viruses.

*Do Not Give To The Haitian Government — Haiti is known to be a corrupt country. And news reports post earthquake indicate that the government is pretty much not functioning. If that is not enough reason not to give directly to the Haiti government, then consider the fact that contributions to foreign governments are not tax deductible.

*Designate Your Investment — Generally, it is best to trust your chosen charity to spend your donation as it sees fit. But with disaster-related giving, you should specify that you want your donation only used to respond to this particular crisis.

*Do Not Send Supplies — Knowing that millions of people are desperately in need of food and water, it is hard not to want to pack up a box of supplies and send it to Haiti. But this type of philanthropy is simply not practical or efficient. Even if mail could get to Haiti, no one is set up to receive these goods, much less organize and distribute them to the victims.

Charity Navigator’s evolving list of confirmed and legitimate organizations working on Haitian earthquake relief can be accessed at www.charitynavigator.org.