Our thoughts are with our Elements Financial members and their friends and family impacted by the California wildfires.
Unfortunately, in times of crisis, scammers try to take advantage of the empathy and generosity of others. They will disguise themselves as charities and contact you by email, phone, social media, and text to ask for money for their personal gain. Please be on alert for fraud of this nature by following these guidelines:
- Notice how any organization wants you to donate. Use caution if they ask for donations as gift cards, wire transfers, Zelle or Venmo payments, or even straight cash. Reputable organizations will not typically request these forms of payment. If you receive a request asking you for a monetary donation in a specific manner, avoid interacting with it.1
- Do not rush into donating because you feel pressured to act immediately. Do not trust any organization using hard-sell tactics or time-specific perks for donating within a certain timeframe.1
- When you feel ready to donate, do your research about organizations to support. Legitimate charities will have a website where you can view their mission statement and what your donations will go toward. The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance and the Internal Revenue Service allow you to search organizations to determine their validity. You can also check out the National Association of State Charity Officials, where many charities must register, or Charity Navigator, a nonprofit that evaluates charities based on their financial health, accountability, and transparency.2
- Scammers often create “lookalike” charities that use variations of trusted names to fool you. Phony charity websites usually will have signs of a scam, such as vague language, typos, grammatical errors, or a lack of information such as their mission statement, a board of directors listing, or contact information – look for a physical address, phone number, email, and established social media sites. For GoFundMe and similar grassroots digital campaigns, look into the organizer or group behind it before donating.
What To Do If You’ve Been Scammed Already
If you know or even suspect that you have been scammed, it is important to take the immediate and necessary actions to limit losses and future damage to your accounts and identity:
- Contact Elements Financial and any other financial institutions you use, immediately: If you sent the scammer any money or account information, let us know that you have experienced fraud. Ask that the transaction be canceled and if it has already gone through, you might be able to dispute the payment.2
- File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission: Let the FTC know about the scam that you have experienced via a formal complaint. This will allow them to protect others from experiencing the same scam. The FTC will provide you with the proper steps to take next.2
- Freeze your credit reports: Scams that steal your personal information and not only your money can be harmful to your credit rating. To be proactive, freeze your credit reports immediately. Doing so will block the scammer from opening any accounts using your information, which could tarnish your credit.2
Questions? Our credit union experts are always here for you. Contact us at Elements Financial for fraud support.
Sources:
