First Katrina Scammer Arrested, Tricked 50 People Out Of Nearly $1,000 Each
from the must-do-quite-a-convincing-job dept
The Hurricane Katrina scams were well expected as soon as the tragedy started unfolding. The FBI is already cracking down on some, like the Florida man who convinced 50 people to give him about $40,000 to take part in rescue missions in New Orleans that never happened. Here’s the thing that still doesn’t make any sense: if you have about $1,000 free to donate to worthy causes, do you give it to some random guy who puts up a website? Don’t you at least check him out or do some amount of due diligence in what kind of “charity” you’re donating to?
Comments on “First Katrina Scammer Arrested, Tricked 50 People Out Of Nearly $1,000 Each”
Sad
You know this is sad. I would not donate money to anyone other than the red cross. I know it will go where it is supposed to go.
Re: Sad
though a lot of would go to the victims, some will go to prevention… who wants to doante to prevention 🙂
Re: Sad
Actually, the Red Cross is one of the worst charities out there. I’ve heard many stories of them keeping most of the donation money; just do a search for “red cross corruption”. The last big hurricane (Andrew?) found them withholding money from victims while the Salvation Army was bending over backwards to help out. And don’t forget the big deal with Bob Dole’s wife when she was President of the Red Cross; she pretty much used it as a personal petty cash fund and a political platform.
The reason. ..
I think the reason these people were so easily fooled is because it is much harder to say know to a person “in-person” who is out to do a good cause (save lives for Katrina) than to say no on someone “over the phone”. These people felt guilty and gave up their wallets right there because that is what humanbeings do. Door-to-door sales people know this trick about people very well. So i dont think these people were dumb.
No Subject Given
Had a guy here who went around to garage sales and said he was collecting stuff for Katrina victims. He got people to give hin stuff they didn’t sell and even stuff they weren’t planning to sell. Then he took it to the local flea market and sold it.
It’s true that it’s harder to turn someone away when they’re collecting for a worthy cause in person. You feel guilty if you don’t throw some change in the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas, but you don’t mind refusing the bum in the parking lot outside Wal Mart when he asks for spare change.
not uncommon
Every time there’s a large disaster like this, the scum come out of the woodwork. Remember the tsunami?
Oh, and a lot of the scam websites set up post-Katrina were overseas. 95% of them were not Americans.
No Subject Given
Sure the scammer is scum. And like most, he’s not very smart — using his own checking and paypal accounts! No wonder he got caught so fast. It’s like using your own pre-printed deposit slip to pass a robbery note to the bank teller.