The Make-a-Wish Foundation is one such charity. They do fantastic work with children who are suffering from life-threatening conditions, granting their “once in a lifetime” wishes.

When we heard that scammers were calling up people in the US claiming that they were representing Make-A-Wish and congratulating them on having won a “sweepstake” then we had to spread the word, as these scams often make their way around the world.

What’s the scam?

You receive a phone call from a “federal agent” telling you you’ve won a sweepstake run by the Foundation. In return for an advance payment of tax due on the winnings, you will receive your prize. Of course, there’s no sweepstake, no prize and your money will simply line the pockets of the scammers.

“This is a scam unlike any we have ever experienced before, both in terms of the amount of money that people are being tricked out of, and in terms of the lengths these scammers will go to convince callers they are actually federal agents,”

said Paul G. Allvin, vice president of marketing and communications for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America.

“Many of the victims truly believed they would receive hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars in return for paying these taxes in advance. And they often dug into their savings or raided their retirement nest eggs to pay the money,” Allvin said. “It is a despicable act on the part of the scammers, particularly at a time when so many are suffering from the down economy.”

If you receive a telephone call or email approach purporting to be from the Foundation, please do not respond or make any payments.

If you would like to support the work of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, you can do so by making a secure donation here

We’re pleased to report that the site has now been shut down and we’d like to thank our friends at Privacy Protect and UK2 for their help and support in achieving this great result.

How did we do it?

After we’d proven that the website was fake, we checked the whois data for the website and found that it was protected by “Whois Privacy”, a service which (whilst having genuine uses) is often used by scammers to hide fake registration details and slow down investigations into the origins of their scam websites. A quick report to Privacy Protect was enough to remove this privacy, as the website was clearly in breach of their terms and conditions forbidding unlawful activity.

Once the whois privacy was lifted, we were able to ascertain two key points:

1. That the sponsoring registrar for the domain was UK2.net
2. That the whois details were false, in violation of ICANN regulations

This enabled us to submit abuse reports to both ICANN and UK2.net asking them to intervene and shut down the website.

We’d like to thank the abuse teams at PrivacyProtect, ICANN and UK2 Group for their swift action in processing our report and getting the site shut down.

A drop in the ocean

Unfortunately, this is only one of many websites that solicit donations to fake charities. We can’t shut them all down (much as we’d love to) because of the time and effort that it takes to find, investigate and report them. We are looking for corporate sponsors for Scam Detectives to help us fund our work.

If you’d like to help, please contact us via Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/scam_detectives) or by email at charles(at)scam-detectives(dot)co(dot)uk

Thanks again to everyone who helped to get this vile site shut down.

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?

Editor’s Disclaimer: Whilst I am reporting an actual conversation, I have no way of verifying the information or details contained within. The interviewee contacted me voluntarily and anonymously claiming to be an ex-scammer who is now studying in the UK. I have agreed to tell his story but this is told ‘as is’ without guarantee as to accuracy or truthfulness. To protect our users we have agreed that the interviewee, who will be known by the pseudonym “John”, will not directly take part in discussions or comments and will not join our community. I do not know how long “John” will maintain contact and in the event that contact is broken, this series of blogs will be discontinued.

We were contacted by reformed Nigerian advance fee fraud scammer “John” last week. He asked us to publish his story to help warn our readers about the dangers of entering into transactions with strangers via email. You can read the first part of our interview with “John” Here.

I tried to get “John” to talk more about his work with the EFCC, and to tell me more about how he came to be in the UK despite his conviction, but he became guarded and told me he thought I was trying to trick him into identifying himself. I felt it was more important to talk about scams than corroborate his story, so let this go.

Scam-Detective: We spoke last week about your involvement with advance fee fraud scams and “phishing” emails. You told me that you were recruited into a gang at the age of 15 and were convicted of fraud a little over 2 years ago, serving 2 years in prison for your crimes. You also told me that you are now working with the Nigerian authorities to bring other scammers to justice, whilst trying to educate yourself by doing a business studies course at college.

John: That’s right. I’m trying to make things right with God and my family.

Scam-Detective: A reader has asked me to talk to you about face to face scams. Were you ever involved in meeting a victim, or was all of your contact by email?

John: I never met a victim, but I was involved in a couple of Wash-Wash scams.

Scam-Detective: Wash Wash scams? What does that involve?

John: We would tell the victim that we had a trunk full of money, millions of dollars. One victim met some of my associates in a hotel in Amsterdam, where he was shown a box full of black paper. He was told that the money had been dyed black to get through customs, and that it could be cleaned with a special chemical that was very expensive. My associates showed him how this worked with a couple of $100 bills from the top of the box, which they rinsed with some liquid to remove the black dye. Of course the rest of the bills were only black paper, but the victim saw real money. He handed over $27,000 (about £17,000) to buy the chemicals and was told to return to the hotel later that day to pick up the cash. Of course when he came back, there was nobody there. He couldn’t report it to anybody because if it had been real it would have been illegal, so he would have gotten himself into trouble.

Scam-Detective: Ok, I also want to talk more about how you managed to get your victims to trust you. I know it can be difficult for legitimate businesses to persuade customers to buy their products, yet you were able to convince people to part with their cash to get their hands on money that never existed in the first place, with at least one taking an international flight on top. That’s quite a skill, how did you learn to do it?

John: Once I had spent some time as a “foot soldier” (* sending out initial approaches and passing serious victims to other scammers) I was promoted to act as either a barrister, shipping agent or bank official. In the early days I had a supervisor who would read my emails and suggest responses, then I was left to do it myself. I had lots of different documents that I would use to convince the victim that I was genuine, including photographs of an official looking man in an office, fake ID and storage manifests, bank statements showing the money, whatever would best convince the victim that I, and the money, was real. I think the English term is to “worm my way” into their trust, taking it slowly and carefully so I didn’t scare them away by asking for too much money too soon.

Scam-Detective: What would you do if a victim had sent money and couldn’t afford to send more, or got cold feet?

John: I would use whatever tactics were needed to get more money. I would send faked letters which stated that the money was about to be taken out of the account by the bank or seized by the government to make them think it was urgent, or tell them that this was definitely the last obstacle to the money being released. I would encourage them to take out loans or borrow money from friends to make the last payment, but tell them that it was important that they didn’t tell anyone what the money was for. I promised them that the expenses would be paid back on top of their share of the money.

Scam-Detective: So you basically didn’t care where the money came from, or what they had to do to get it, as long as they got it?

John: Some of the blame has to go to the victims. They wanted the money too because they were greedy. Lots of times I would get emails telling me that they wanted more money than I was offering because of the money they were having to send. They could afford to lose the money.

Scam-Detective: John, I think you have been basically honest with me so far. Please don’t stop that now. You know as well as I do that not all of your victims were motivated by greed. I have seen plenty of scam emails that talk about dying widows who want to give their money to charity, or young people who are in refugee camps and need help to get out. You targetted vulnerable, charitable people as well as greedy businessmen, didn’t you? You didn’t care whether they could afford it or not, did you?

John: Ok, you are right. I am not proud of it but I had to feed my family.

Scam-Detective: And fund your BMW, mobile phones and laptops, let’s not forget about that. When the victim had run out of money and couldn’t send any more, was that the end of it? Or did you go back later for more?

John: We had something called the recovery approach. A few months after the original scam, we would approach the victim again, this time pretending to be from the FBI, or the Nigerian Authorities. The email would tell the victim that we had caught a scammer and had found all of the details of the original scam, and that the money could be recovered. Of course there would be fees involved as well. Victims would often pay up again to try and get their money back.

Scam-Detective: So when the victim had had some time to get over the fact that you had wormed your way into their lives, gained their trust and ripped them off, you went back for another bite of the cherry? The more I speak to you John, the less I like you.

John: I know, I know. Don’t be angry with me. I’m not proud of what I have done and I am very sorry for everyone who sent money. If I could give it back I would.

Scam-Detectives: But only if they sent you $1000 by Wire Transfer first? Ignore that. Tell me more about corruption in Nigeria. Did you pay bribes to officials and wire transfer office staff to make things easier?

John: I can’t tell you about that, I have to be careful. I can tell you that lots of people make money from scams in Nigeria, and not all of them are scammers. Everyone has their cut.

I terminated the interview at this point as I was getting angry with “John” and felt it was better for me not to continue. “John” has asked if he can contact me again. I agreed but am not sure what more I can learn from him that would be useful to our readers. I think that any further conversations would only serve to make “John” feel better and act as some kind of counselling for him, which I have no interest in providing. I don’t want him to feel better about what he has done, or to assuage his conscience. He should feel guilt for the rest of his life.

“John” called me again on Monday February 1st – Read the third (and probably final) part of our interview here

Please help us to spread the word and stop people like “John” earning more money from vulnerable people. Use the social bookmarking buttons below to share this post with your online friends.

We now have a great range of PC and Home Security products available in the Scam Detectives Security Supplies online store (powered by Amazon).

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.

Our thoughts are with all those affected by this tragic disaster, and we sincerely hope that the scammers trying to take advantage of this situation to “turn a quick profit” get everything they truly deserve.

UPDATE: We’ve also been notified of a scam circulating on Facebook asking users to donate via text message. Again, check out the official charity’s website before donating to make sure your donation is going where it’s needed, and not into scammer’s pockets.

We now have a great range of PC and Home Security products available in the Scam Detectives Security Supplies online store (powered by Amazon).