Online and Wireless Technology and the Haiti Earthquake Relief Effort: Helpful or Harmful?

On January 12th, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. Just three days later, more than $8 million had been donated to help victims and their families. This money had been donated in $5 and $10 denominations through text messaging, with the cost of the donations being charged to customers' cell phone bills (1).

Meanwhile, Facebook set up a Global Disaster Relief site, with a special area dedicated to either searching for or obtaining information about missing individuals (2). On Twitter, the singer Wyclef Jean promoted his foundation Yele.org for helping with the Haiti earthquake relief efforts. People could go to the Yele.org web site and donate money online or via text message (3). So far, almost $2 million has been raised.

While new technologies such as text messaging, social media groups, and online donations have expedited the process of helping others through philanthropic organizations and charities, they have also become populated with scams.

Arguably, the most common scams have been those where spam e-mails were sent to unwitting recipients. These e-mails usually requested money for Haiti and often contained spelling and grammatical errors. Some of the e-mails alluded to legitimate charitable organizations such as the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Unicef (4). In some cases, the e-mails appeared to be coming from a specific individual in Haiti who was asking for help.

In other cases, charity donation scams were posted through social media outlets such as Facebook. One scam asked Facebook users to cut and paste a piece of content into their status update area. In exchange, Facebook would make a $1 donation to a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund. The other scam announced that when users joined a Facebook group, Facebook would make a $1 donation to Haiti (with no actual charity name provided) (5). Facebook has since posted scam alerts for both of these announcements.

So, how can well-meaning individuals use technologies such as texting and social media applications to donate money to charities and not be scammed? When sending money through text messaging, online donation, or other means, it pays to do some research first. The FTC makes several useful recommendations on its web site, such as donating directly to the charity rather than through third parties, donating to established charities rather than start-ups, as well as not giving out personal information such as bank account or credit card numbers (6). One can also contact the Wise Giving Alliance of the Better Business Bureau (7) or the American Institute of Philanthropy (8) with questions regarding the legitimacy of a particular charitable organization.

In summary, there are many legitimate online charity organizations to which one can donate money. However, it pays to do a little bit of research before simply sending a text or online donation to a particular organization.

References:

1. Tom Brown: Social networking finds triumph amid tragedy in devastated Haiti. http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100118/NEWS01/1180302/Tom-Brown-Social-networking-finds-triumph-amid-tragedy-in-devastated-HaitiFacebook

2. Global Disaster Relief http://www.facebook.com/DisasterRelief#/DisasterRelief?ref=mf

3. YeleHaiti http://yele.org/

4. Haiti scams are spreading: experts. by Michael Oliveira. http://www.torontosun.com/news/haiti/2010/01/14/12467561.html

5. Facebook Scams Exploit Users Via The Tragedy In Haiti. http://thefacebookinsider.com/2010/01/facebook-scams-exploit-users-via-the-tragedy-in-haiti/

6. After a Disaster: Spam May Scam. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt027.shtm

7. Better Business Bureau: For Charities and Donors http://www.bbb.org/us/charity/

8. American Institute of Philanthropy http://www.charitywatch.org/