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How The Woman Who Owned Katrina.com Started Helping Victims
from the some-good-in-a-sea-of-bad dept
As the stories coming from the Hurricane Katrina aftermath just keep getting worse and worse, it was no surprise at all to hear that online scammers had already set up shop and were doing everything possible to trick people out of their money. Some are, of course, registering domain names with Katrina in them to trick people into thinking they're legit. However, the domain Katrina.com has been owned for many years by a web designer in Virginia. With so many people visiting the site and calling her, she realized that she could help, and quickly set up the site as a central resource for relatives trying to find each other. She's also turned down offers for thousands of dollars from opportunistic web brokers trying to profit off of the situation. With so much emphasis on all of the bad stuff coming out of this disaster, it's good to hear a story of someone doing the right thing.
Reader Comments
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No Subject Given
Way to go web-babe! Karma shines upon you like the sun through the holes in the Superdome!
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Re: No Subject Given
I wish they could take the scammers and toss them into jail for life. People who attempt to exploit such misery are detrimental to the very idea of society and civilization in general.
It's such behavior that leads to a breakdown in trust and a makes people wary of helping one another. Society does not need them.
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Re: No Subject Given
I personally am thinking of sentence multipliers.
for example:
+ scamming (IANAL insert proper legal term here) - 1 year
+ victom's age 65 - sentence = sentence * 2 (cumulative)
+ # affected > 10 - sentence = sentence * 2< BR>+ exploiting natural disaster - sentence = sentence * 5
So for one of these scumballs using the web to exploit Katrina victoms:
sentence = 1 * 2 (children involved) * 2 (elderly involved) * 2 (more than 10 people involved) * 5 (natural disaster involved)
sentence = 1 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 5 = 40 years
Something like that anyway.
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Well-done Katrina in VA
While there is suffering in NOLA, it's great to see the lady in Va. resisting temptation to profit from her domain.
Mike
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Florida
What happened in New Orleans is a tragedy and the people there do need help. But let's not forget the people of Florida who have not yet recovered from last years 4 hurricanes. They need as much help today as they did before Katrina. Don't send all the funds to New Orleans
Peter Kuhn
Lakeland Florida
doublewidetrailer@gmail.com
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A wonderful thing she's doing...
Here's a quick shout out to what a wonderful thing this woman is doing with the domain name. Thanks for sharing this story. Sometimes it's easy for the scammers to steal the press in times of tradgedy -- it's nice to be reminded of all the folks out there that are trying to genuinely help others in this time of need.
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No Subject Given
it's good to hear a story of someone doing the right thing.
NPR reported an offer of $500,000.00 for the domain name. Personally, I'd have sold off the domain name for that amount, and used the money to buy land far, far away from the coasts.
I have no idea if selling the domain would be 'the right thing', but buying the land would be 'the right thing' for me.
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