Scammers Target Haiti Disaster Funds Using Domain URL's

[companyone]

Hi,

Scammers Target Haiti Disaster Funds

Scammers have wasted no time in trying to cash in on the chaos unfolding in Haiti.

As soon as the scale of the disaster on Tuesday was known, fraudsters started to register URL's.

Not all are fakes but the FBI has issued a warning for donors to be vigilant and give money to only recognized organizations like the Disasters Emergency Committee, the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

Search engine manipulation, Twitter tags and even paid search engine placement ads drive the web traffic.

There are other ways cyber criminals are exploiting the disaster, those wanting to view videos related to Haiti are prompted to download software that will compromise their web security.

According to The Register, Security researchers at the Internet Storm Centre have already logged the appearance of suspicious domains not connected to recognized charities. "We are already seeing a bunch of domains being parked in relation to the Haiti disaster, and we are going to attempt to keep an eye on them all to warn our readers of anything possibly misaligned," ISC researcher Joel Esler writes.


You can count on fraudsters to be there

The U.S Better Business Forum said:

"Whenever there is a major natural disaster, be it home or abroad, there are two things you can count on. The first is the generosity ...to donate time and money to help victims, and the second is the appearance of poorly run and in some cases fraudulent charities."

Since the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, heartless scammers have refined their methods and fine tuned their appearance. Fake sites can often appear indistinguishable from the main aid agencies.

As many as 100,000 people are feared dead, and millions more affected, by a magnitude 7.0 quake whose epicentre was located approximately 15km from Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

Advice for donors include:

* Rely on expert opinion when it comes to evaluating a charity.
* Be wary of claims that 100 percent of donations will assist relief victims.
* Be cautious when giving online.
* Find out if the charity has an on-the-ground presence in the impacted areas.
* Find out if the charity is providing direct aid or raising money for other groups.
* Gifts of clothing, food or other in-kind donations.

.

Source

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Best,
Dan

[John Baron]

Thanks for the info Dan ,

how sick a person can be to steal money from those poor people who are suffering so badly right now...crazy...

[companyone]

yonatan.... That was my whole point...Starting with Katrina...I have always registered 7 - 15 domains trying to "beat them to the punch"

I was a little late on this one....so many good ones where already registered. I was right on top of it for the Virgina Tech shooting a couple years ago...and got better names....I amm sure got some "decent" traffic...Redirected to the "official VT donation site."

It is really, really bad their now... people are going to start dying from lack of food and water...and diseases.

Very Sad...the videos and TV coverage I have seen.

They need some "Building Codes" when they start to "re-build"!

___
Best,
Dan

[draggar]

Thanks for the info Dan ,

how sick a person can be to steal money from those poor people who are suffering so badly right now...crazy...

They do it with every disaster.

The best things you can do is to donate to known charties (Red Cross, etc..) though the means expressed on their own site and to report suspicious ones. Snopes has become a good resource to finding legit ones since news agencies have been known to accidentally promote scams.

So far two are form text messaging, one is from the Red Cross and the other is from Wyclef's charity (zurc posted it in the gold forum - search for his post).

It is really, really bad their now... people are going to start dying from lack of food and water...and diseases.

Very Sad...the videos and TV coverage I have seen.

They need some "Building Codes" when they start to "re-build"!

The anarchy is already starting to happen - even their government can't do much now (their president has stated that even he is sleeping on the streets with the palace and his home both destroyed). There was no control over the airport with their tower collapsed (the first 24 hours planes were just landing when they could), the port is heavily damaged and most roads are blocked so it is extremely difficult to get aid in.

A 7.0 is nothing to shrug off, even in places that are well prepared like Tokyo and California. While we see a lot of death and destruction now they will rebuild and I'm sure they'll build stronger and better.

[Ulysses]

These are lowlife, they should be strung up.

How can these people so called human beings sleep at night.

Just my 2cents

[companyone]

Hi draggar...

Agreed...they had/have a very bad & corrupt government before this....The US has given them over 3+ Billion Dollars before this...in a 5-10 year period.

They sure did not help their people much with it.

In my other thread in this section....I reg about 10 "Red Cross" domains..have them going to the proper Red cross pages.

Please remember...if you donate money directly to the Red Cross....make sure you tell them you want it all to go directly to "Haiti"....or else, It will just end up going into their....."General Fund".

Thanks everyone for your reply's!

Best,
Dan

[companyone]

Hi,

Ex-Convict Registers Haiti Charity Web Addresses

William P. Barrett, 01.15.10, 05:00 PM EST
Georgia man did federal prison time for bank fraud involving Atlanta Falcons players.

Two days after the Haiti earthquake, a man who served federal prison time for a fraud that enmeshed Atlanta Falcons players registered four Web addresses geared toward soliciting contributions invoking that disaster.

The man, Frederick Ray McKoy, 49, of Smyrna, Ga., claimed rights to the domain names:

DonateToHaitiNow .org, SupportHaitiNow .org, HaitiNeedsU .org and HaitiNeedsYouNow .org.

None of the Web addresses are functioning yet.

In a telephone interview Friday with Forbes, McKoy, 49, readily admitted his criminal background. But he said his Haiti-themed domain names were intended for legitimate charitable fundraising and grew out of conversations with a Haitian friend in the U.S. who has family missing after the earthquake.

However, later in the day McKoy said that in light of the inquiries by Forbes, he did not plan to use the addresses or sell them to others. "I don't want people to think I'm a crook," he said. "I know who I am."

McKoy took out the domain names amid growing concerns nationally and internationally over the possibility of fundraising fraud in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, which likely will generate huge amounts of assistance, much of it funneled via big nonprofits such as those on the Forbes list of America's 200 Largest Charities. Hurricane Katrina in 2004 spawned thousands of bogus Web fundraising efforts. New warnings about charity fraud come from sources as diverse as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection.

Forbes discovered McKoy's Web initiative by searching through publicly available Internet domain directories looking for new registrations containing the word Haiti.
SOURCE: FORBES.COM

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Best,
Dan

[DomainShane]

I threw my 2 cents in

http://domainshane.com/id-like-to-in...aight-to-hell/

[companyone]

Hi Bgum...

Thanks...very nice and well written! I am sure it will help a has already!

Peace! have a great weekend!
Dan

BTW: I posted a comment on your article.

[damitssam]

If theres a silver lining to all of this, Haiti will rebuild, and hopefully, PROPER city building will occur. Very rarely in the modern world does a capital get rebuilt from basically scratch. Perhaps with all the aid Haiti is getting it can reconstruct and make port au prince better then it was before. Remember the chicago fire, the london fire, etc.