During hard times, such as the coronavirus pandemic, most people look for ways that they can give back to their community to help those in need. Most people within a community show off their good-hearted nature by giving back when they can, and feeling like they contributed to those who needed the help.\u00a0However, scammers know the good-hearted nature of most individuals and want to take advantage of their money by coming up with fake coronavirus charities.<\/p>\n
Fake coronavirus charities are made by scammers to seem like legit charities that are giving a lot of money to those in need of additional support due to the coronavirus. They convince many innocent people to donate to these charities, then take advantage of their good hearts and keep the money for themselves.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”https:\/\/socialcatfish.com\/scamfish\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/My-Post-55.jpg” panorama=”off” imgwidth=”100%” offset=”100%” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]\n
Scammers pose as the victim\u2019s family on Facebook and post fake GoFundMe accounts asking to donate for a family member\u2019s funeral. People then feel grief, knowing that their family member passed away, and donate to the GoFundMe account feeling bad and wanting to help. The scammers then steal the money donated to them and keep it for themselves.<\/p>\n
Scammers go door-t0-door at their victims\u2019 houses, asking for donations for their charities. They either sell something, like coupon books and claim that all profits made will go back to the charity they are representing. However, they keep all your money for themselves instead and use it for their own selfish reasons.<\/p>\n
One charity foundation that is being impersonated by scammers is the Dayton Foundation. They have stated that if someone goes door-to-door selling coupon books pretending to be them, that it isn’t them. Each coupon book is worth $30, and the profits of each book are going to scammers.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”https:\/\/socialcatfish.com\/scamfish\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/My-Post-57.jpg” panorama=”off” imgwidth=”100%” offset=”100%” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]\n
Scammers pretend to be charities and call their victims, asking them to donate to a good cause. They ask for the victims\u2019 personal and bank account information over the phone as a form of payment for the fake coronavirus charities their victims are paying for.<\/p>\n
After this, the money then goes to the scammers so that they can use your hard-earned money on whatever they want, and they also know your personal information so that they can commit identity theft.<\/p>\n
Victims get a text message or an email from scammers, claiming to be a charity providing relief to people due to the coronavirus. These emails and text messages usually contain links for people to click on in order to donate to these charities.<\/p>\n
Once they click the links, malware gets installed on their devices and they are asked to provide personal information and bank account information to provide to the charity. Their life savings then get stolen and provided back to the scammers rather than get donated to a good cause.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”https:\/\/socialcatfish.com\/scamfish\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/My-Post-56.jpg” panorama=”off” imgwidth=”100%” offset=”100%” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]\n
If you feel like you have donated to a fake charity and have information on the suspected scammer, Social Catfish<\/a> can help you! We have a reverse search tool<\/a> that can look up any name, email address, phone number, username from a social media platform, and image to figure out who you were actually talking to.<\/p>\n