Beware of Geeks baring grift

[jhetley]

Probably a mile behind the learning curve, as always, but I'll post this warning anyway.

When you are donating to your favorite charity for disaster relief, make sure you know where the money is _really_ going. Scam artists are doing their scummy thing with fake web pages, redirected URLs, dummy charities that sound like something real, etc.

A paper check mailed directly to your local Red Cross chapter (not an endorsement, just an example) is probably not going to end up cashed in China or Brazil, with your credit card number phished to the Moscow Mafia....

Comments

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Good advice; would be even better if you had bothered to include some trusted links that people could go to. They're not particulary difficult to come across. For example


www.redcross.org/
secure.hsus.org/01/disaster_relief_fund_2005?source=drfhbl
www.noahswish.org/
www.secondharvest.org/
www.pcusa.org/pda
gbgm-umc.org/umcor
www.tzuchi.org/global
www.mds.mennonite.net/
www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/
www.ujc.org/
www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
www.uusc.org/

I have posted a link to a journal that examined every charity and gave info on them.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'm not in a position to verify that any of those are actually safe. I'll leave that to people with valid geek licenses. Mine expired before the internet existed.

I don't post links for just that reason. I don't mind your doing so, but I wouldn't want to steer somebody to a virus or spyware or a scam.