How to Avoid Schemers When Giving to Charities - Safety Precautions

How to Avoid Schemers When Giving to Charities

People nowadays are becoming more intelligent specially schemers. Usually they take their chances when tragedy strikes like the Haiti tragedy and play on peoples emotions which are specially high during the times that they are willing to give and shell out something to help the people who are stricken by the tragedy. It is during disasters that the schemers are also very active because when you really want to help you might be willing to help in a jiffy and then at the spur of the moment you just give to “so called” charities without even checking if they are indeed legitimate ones.

We can do a lot to help but then it is just frustrating at times when you found that you have been scammed for the hard earned cash that you have. I am just saying that it is good to check first if your money is going to the right persons that are in need of help.

Giving to charities is easier as it does these days too, there are ways to make your share like:

• Internet - most of the biggest charities working for children, housing, humanitarian, elderly etc have websites. Some big ones are already operational with the longest time in operations like 100 years or so
• Personal approach by phone or house to house campaign --- they can be very wise these days as they also call people in their homes and asking for donations for the local firemen or police stations etc or for any cause within the locality
• Texting a certain number -- when you are requested to text a certain number and then give your donations
• Tables at the mall, groceries etc -- When you are at the mall and then some tables are located on the side or when you go to grocery stores, there are some big bowl for donations.
• Organizations in which you are a member: Some officials of organizations requests for the members to share some if they are willing to give

When giving in to charities there are some things that you need to consider whether you need to donate to a particular charity or not:

Are they legitimate ones? How do you know if they are legitimate ones?

• Check with the charity office of your locality of indeed the organization is a valid one, yes organization not individual. You need to get informations like name, address, and phone number of the charity -- and whether or not it is registered, if it is, just get the registration number.

Things to keep in mind:

• Dropping off a donation at a charity directly, rather than going through a "middle man" who claims to be collecting on its behalf is good too.
• If somebody approach you by phone or personal asking money that is already a sign that something is wrong, they you need to verify first, but if they are your friends or relatives still you need to check if it is a scam or not.
• Don’t send out personal money or cash to anybody, send check with the organizations name on it and copy the check you sent
• Don’t divulge your bank account number (check number, etc) or any information pertaining to your bank accounts
• They can use email too, but usually the legitimate ones don’t email individuals, most often that not, personal emails asking for donations are spams, except of course if the sender is a known person to you. Still you need to verify it first.
• Be very careful when giving your credit card information as you might be in for identity theft
• Don’t click on any spam in your computer and asking you to state your personal information, you are inviting yourself to phising etc.
• The FBI is urging people to also be skeptical of people claiming to be survivors or officials asking for donations via e-mail or social networking Web sites too. (I saw this in CNN the other day)
• Be very wary of the guilt trip when they asked your donations, just give in what you can, no minimum needed.
• Always get a receipt of the names of the charity on it.

You might say, well, nothing is certain when you are donating but you can actually put the money or goods you are donating into proper use and in helping those who really need it by being cautious and checking it first.