At some point in all of our lives we come to a point where we feel the urge to donate either ur time or our money to a charitable organization. Often times we may even hand the guy on the street who is asking for money a few bucks here and there. It makes us feel good to help others who are in need. Scammers like to take advantage of this need, so we have to be careful who we sign a check over too and who we hand a couple of bucks to, because you may not be helping anyone at all, and that defeats the point and can truly affect your willingness to give again in the future.
In a recent poll in San Diego, many of the people you see standing on the side of the road asking for money were asked two questions. The first question was, “Are you homeless”? and the Second question was, “Do you have a job”? The reason these question were asked was because there was a rumor going around that some of these people asking for money were actually living very nice lives, in big houses because of other peoples generosity, so in essence, asking for money was teir job. A hundred people were questioned and out of that one hundred people questioned four people were making a very nice living off of asking others for money. They get up n the morning and put on rags, and head out the door to work. While it seems like a good way to make a quick buck, they are still taking advantage of the people who are donating to them. Their appearance gives us the impression that they are homeless, then on occasion we give them a few bucks. They can easily make over a hundred dollars a day.
Aside from this particular scam, there are many other scams out there, one including online scams. A lot of mirror websites are set up and if you do not know any better, you could be donating to a scammer rather than the Salvation Army. Always check the URL, if the URL looks odd, do not donate. Chances are very high that the site is not legit. It is horribly unfortunate that we have people in this world that would take advantage of this urge we all have to give to those less fortunate, but with a little information we can avoid giving to scammers in the future.