Scam Detectives Investigates – Haiti fake charity website

At Scam Detectives HQ we’ve just returned from a great holiday (which is why you haven’t heard from us for a few days!) – No phones, no email, no internet, no contact with the outside world. OK, so we had snow, hail, rain, wind, sleet and (a very little) sunshine, but we didn’t let the great British weather spoil our fun.

When we got home, we were treated to this despicable, unforgivable scam designed to convince you to give your hard earned cash to the children affected by the Haiti earthquake.

First, the email:

Mercy & Sharing is an organization that was co-founded by evangelical
Christians Susie and Joe Krabacher. Dedicated humanitarian, whose work is
saving, feeding and educating children, that’s how People magazine, Marie
Claire, The Wall Street Journal is used to characterize Susie for her deeds in
helping the poor. While Joe is known for his blessed business career by
co-founding satellite communications company and fiber-optic networking company
as well as for his law practice with the law firm Sherman Howard. From the beginning
the organization’s aim was at helping abandoned and mistreated children in the
Republic of Haiti, but in the recent years Mercy & Sharing’s mission has
expanded to provide food to the elderly and oppressed in the northern part of
Haiti. Surveys have showed that in Haiti one of every three children dies by
age 5, because of the great rate of poverty 80% of population lives in poverty
and 54% are living in even more worse conditions. But with God’s blessing the
organization succeeded in helping 5,100 children and elderly.
Mercy & Sharing have always been helping the poor population of
Haiti by using the inner infrastructure of Haiti. Due to the quake disaster
that recently happen, we have brought all our capacities to rescue, providing
emergency food, shelter, medical treatment to children and elderly. In addition
we are supervising over your donations so the right people who really need them
receive them.

www.helptohaitichildren.com

Now, the charity Mercy & Sharing does exist, and is run by Christians Susie & Joe Krabacher, who do amazing work in the humanitarian field around the world. They run a genuine charity and website at www.haitichildren.com

So how do we know that THIS website is fake?

The content has been taken from www.haitichildren.com and simply rearranged a bit. Compare the two websites and you’ll soon see what I mean.

Despite their “About Us” page claiming that they have been in existence since 1994, the website was registered on 8th February 2010. The “Whois” details for the registrant are protected by a privacy service, as we’ve seen in previous scam investigations.

The address listed on their contact page is:

316 kennington road
London
SE11 4LD

This is the address of a “Pizza Express” branch in South East London, as can be seen in this Google Streetmap View

There is no charity of this name registered in the UK at any address.

The telephone number listed on the site is fake.

The bank account is a personal savings account. We have reported the account details to the Halifax who have been extremely helpful and are currently investigating. We would like to point out that the account holder may well be a completely innocent party who has fallen victim to a money mule scam.

What should I do if I’ve donated money?

Contact your local police to report the fraud.
Contact the Halifax on 01133 809 574 and tell them that you have donated money to a fake charity – We have already reported the account details to them and they are investigating, so they will be aware of it.

I want to donate – where is it safe to do so?

Please do not respond to unsolicited emails asking for donations. To ensure that your money will get to those organisations who need it most to get help to the survivors, donate directly to:

The Disaster Emergency Committee – www.dec.org.uk

The Committee will ensure that all donations are used as intended and reach those that need it.

If you have a preferred charity that you would like to donate to, then make sure you go to the official website via your web browser, and not through a link in an email.

Who’s helping them hide?
We ran a report recently about domain registrar Dotster helping V festival ticket scammers hide their identities by offering a private domain registration service. We’re pleased to report that Dotster are not involved in the registration of this domain. This time it’s Privacy Protect who go to great lengths to tell us that “We do not own any domains protected by our service”. Guess what guys? The US courts don’t agree with you, and we’ll be reporting the domain to the US authorities for investigation. If you’re reading this – Stop letting these vile, despicable scammers hide behind your service. Now.

Additional note 8/4/10: As a result of our complaint, PrivacyProtect.org have removed whois privacy from the domain. We thank them for their prompt response and action.
Why couldn’t Dotster do this when we contacted them about www.v-festival-tickets.net?

Tags: Charity Scams, DEC, Earthquake, Email Scam, Email Scams, Haiti