Exploiting Generosity and Technology

I had the good fortune of picking the most unfussy exchange gift "baby" in my block's Christmas party. She just wished that our P300-minimum gift be donated to UNICEF. Sounds pretty laborious but I was actually able to make her Christmas "wish" come true in under a minute. I just had to type "UNICEF 300" on my mobile phone and send the SMS to 2899 and the donation was made! So fast, so simple. But was my donation really sent to the right charity?

Good Lord, I hope so!!! But apparently, there are a lot of charity schemes out there that turn out to be scams. Opportunists particularly prey on the generosity of people during the Christmas season. Usually, they'll snail mail you as legitimate charities and con you into donating your "goodies" by heart-tugging pleas for kindness, humanity, compassion and goodwill. But charity scammers have also reached the cyberworld--a sad reality of technology being used for evil purposes. Online charity scammers are after two things: at best, they want to get your money; at the least, they want to get your personal information which they will use later to get your money. This latter scheme is called phishing, i.e., "an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication" (Wikipedia definition).

Scammers are a fact of real and cyber life and so, we must make a conscious effort to protect ourselves from them. If there aren't sufficient institutional safeguards against the regular charity scammers, more so with the cyber charity scammers. But whether the charity scammer be just the regular type or a cyber one, the most effective protection lies in ourselves--we just have to be a little more wary of these allegedly legitimate entities (see this link for some protective tips: http://www.montereyherald.com/business/ci_7770239?nclick_check=1).

But, hey, don't let these thieves dampen the Christmas spirit either! Give love and dough on Christmas day to the less fortunate ones (like me!!!)! Just make sure the proper donees get them (ehem, ehem...). Advanced Merry Christmas everyone!!!