Becareful Before Donating

A number of Korean bloggers have been advocating donating money to help the relief efforts in south Asia after the recent tsunami has now killed at least 150,000 people. This number is probably going to continue to rise substantially. The people in south Asia are in desperate need and the American government has now allocated $350 million dollars to help the disaster relief. However, if you want to donate money to help the relief effort, first you should read this article coming out the New York press about fraudulent charities.

While the federal government has made attempts to crack down on charity fraud since September 11, 2001 – the Patriot Act increased the penalty of impersonating a Red Cross member to five years from one – and Internet users have become more savvy, phony charities are trying harder than ever to swindle donors on the Internet.

“It doesn’t surprise me that folks are taking advantage of this tragedy,” said the director of the National Fraud Information Center in Washington, D.C., Susan Grant. “You always see these kinds of things after disasters.”

It is pretty sickening that somebody would establish a false relief site for their own personal profit, but it does not suprise me. We all saw this same thing happen after 9-11 with charities pocketing huge sums of money from donors and spending half the money on the victims and half on “administrative costs.”

That is why I’m a big believer in sending aid such as food and clothes instead of cash. It is to tempting for some people to handle large sums of money. People are less likely to conduct fraudelent activity if no cash is involved. Just do your research before you donate to ensure the aid you are giving is getting to the people who need it.