Scamming The Good Samaritans

Lately I had been receiving several calls from people who claimed that they were from the not for profit organisations that I had donated to in the past. The intention of the calls were quite clear: they thanked me for my past donations and wondered if I would like to donate more. One thing that I found odd was the smell of desperation that I sensed by just chatting with them. Here is a grossly summarised conversation between me and a particular caller claiming to be from UNICEF:

Caller: Hi this is XXXXX from UNICEF, may I speak with Irwan?
Me: This is Irwan, how are you?
...
...
Caller: We would like to thank you for your very generous past contribution (as far as I recalled, I only ever donated $50 to UNICEF) ...
...
...
Caller: Do you know that XXXXX country is having XXXXX issue at the moment and require urgent supports, would you be able to do once off donation of $100 ?
Me: Sorry I would like to donate but I am not in the position to commit at the moment
...
...
Caller: How about $30, is that something you could do?
Me: I need to get back to you on that, can you send me email so I can donate through online?
Caller: We are sorry, as part of our effort to reduce costs, we are not sending emails or accepting online donations (how is hiring a horde of telemarketers and not having an online donation webpage a reduction in cost?)
...
...
Me: Sorry, my lunch break is over, I gotta go, maybe give me a call again tomorrow?
Caller: OK sure we'll definitely give you a call again (FYI, I never get called back)
Me: Thanks, cya.

---------

This might be a gross simplified conversation that I had, and might be kind of subjective to me too, but there are two main oddity that gave it away to me as a scam:

Bargaining for a lesser donation.

From my past experience, a real not for profit organisation representative would never bargain for a lesser donation or try to push the potential donor to donate on the spot.

Claiming they do not have online donation.

This is probably the most give away clue, most of the well known not for profit organisations have an online donation page in their official websites. It is very clear that the caller try to avoid the potential donor to donate directly through the official sites since they will not be able to gain any card information or the money.


Here are some of the well known not for profit organisations and their online donation pages:







As you can see, it is perfectly possible to donate online, which bring me to a conclusion that, although not widely as popular as the IRS scam, the donation scam does indeed exists albeit less lucrative.

However, such scam can easily be avoided by telling the caller that you will donate through the official website's online donation page or just say you do not wish to donate at all at the moment.


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