Online scammers try to hijack Haiti donation bandwagon

News of the this week’s devastating earthquakes in Haiti spread quickly across the Internet as people looked for ways to help in the recovery efforts from home. As usual, scammers have seized the opportunity to take advantage of search engine trends by setting up fake charity sites and sending out spam soliciting donations that will go anywhere but Haiti.

Scammers pop up anytime something significant happens, whether it’s a natural disaster or the death of a celebrity, trying to redirect users to their just-registered domains to infect people with malware. Disasters such as the Haiti quakes, though, have the added benefit of concerned citizens wanting to donate money—indeed, as we learned during Hurricane Katrina, large numbers of ignorant Internet users were duped by fake donation sites and ended up sending their money to those with ill intentions instead of charities that could help those in need. And not all of them are obvious scams, either—one e-mail circulating in the UK claims to come from the British Red Cross and even displays the real Red Cross address in London, but directs users to a different domain when they try to click through.

It’s bad enough that several organizations have issued warnings this time around, urging those looking to donate to do their research and choose reputable charities. For example, the Better Business Bureau has a quick guide on what to look for when donating money to Haiti recovery efforts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also has a fraud alert on its site, warning people to be wary of unsolicited e-mails, those soliciting on social networking sites, and those who claim to be making donations to a charity on your behalf. The takeaway from both the BBB and the FBI is to only donate to charities that you know and trust, and if you need help, there’s a list where you can research relief organizations that are accredited by the BBB.

If you don’t have time or energy to do the research, however, we’ll provide a few suggestions for you. The most obvious choice is to donate to the Red Cross, which has told various news outlets that it has already exhausted all of its supplies in Haiti and that there are far more people in need of help. However, the Red Cross website isn’t the only place you can donate anymore—the organization says you can donate a quick $10 just by texting the word “Haiti” to 90999. There’s also Doctors Without Borders/M�decins Sans Fronti�res, an international organization created by doctors that provide relief efforts around the world.

There are a number of other donation memes spreading around Facebook and Twitter, most of which ask you to SMS something to a number to donate $5 or $10. We caution you, however, to be wary of these unless you hear it directly from a reputable organization (such as the Red Cross, as mentioned above)—there’s no telling how much you’re actually charging back to your own phone bill or what services you may inadvertently sign up for.

While you wait for your donations to go through, you can head over to Google Maps to catch updated satellite images of the destruction areas. Google is also offering a KML overlay for Google Earth as part of its partnership with GeoEye.