How scammers use charity and how not to fall for it

An ordinary purchase leaves a trail: there is a product, delivery, a receipt, someone to send a complaint to. A donation has none of this. A person gives money and expects nothing back, so most often simply never finds out that they were deceived.

The second reason is emotion. A photo of a freezing old woman in an unheated room switches off the wish to check. You want to do a good deed quickly and close the tab, and that is exactly the speed the scheme is designed for.

The third reason: almost no one complains. A person who has lost ≈ $4.45 rarely goes to the police, because it is embarrassing and a waste of time. Because of this the same text with the same photo lives for years and collects a little from thousands of people.

Other people's photos. The picture is taken from an old report, from another organisation's site or from a foreign stock library. The sign: the photo is attached to nothing. No name, no city, not a single second shot of the same person.

Money to a personal card. The text says “fund”, but the payment details give a card number in the name of a private person. An organisation has an account under its own EDRPOU code, and the payment goes through its website. The Cyber Police advise making sure the EDRPOU code is entered in the registers and asking for information about the founders and reports for previous years.

Pressure of time. “Four hours left”, “we raise the amount today or it is too late”. Real appeals can be urgent too; the difference is that a real one withstands questions. A fraudulent one falls apart as soon as you ask for a document or an explanation of what the amount is made up of.

A clone of a well-known fund. They copy the name, logo and texts, change one letter in the website address or make a page with the same avatar. Checking is simple: open the fund's official site yourself, not from a link in a post, and see whether the campaign is there.

First find the EDRPOU code. If it is nowhere on the site or in the page description, that is already an answer. Then a free search in the Unified State Register on the Ministry of Justice website, usr.minjust.gov.ua, by code or name: it shows the official name, location and status. If the organisation is in the process of termination or the name does not match the one under which the money is being collected, stop.

Then check the non-profit status. The Register of Non-Profit Institutions and Organisations is kept by the tax authorities and can be looked up in the open part of the Electronic Cabinet at cabinet.tax.gov.ua. The procedure for keeping this register was approved by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 440 of 13 July 2016, which is still in force.

Then compare the details. The name of the payment recipient must match the name in the register word for word, not “similar”. And run the main photo through a reverse image search, the Cyber Police advise this too: if the same picture hangs on a dozen sites with different stories, the question is closed.

Registration of a charitable organisation is available to a wide range of people and in itself says nothing about where the money goes. An entry in the register screens out those who have nothing at all, and there its role ends.

Then look at the reporting. The Law “On Charitable Activity and Charitable Organisations”, in Article 17, says directly: information on the structure and size of the income and expenditure of charitable organisations, and the conditions for using their assets for charitable activity, is not confidential information or a trade secret. So when asked to show the figures, the normal reaction is the figures, not offence.

The same law in Article 11 forbids having as an aim the receiving and distribution of profit among founders, members of governing bodies, related persons and employees. It does not forbid paying employees a salary, but it does prevent being a business under the sign of a fund.

Here is how it looks in practice. The Real Help fund buys groceries and medicine every month for lonely elderly people and delivers them by hand through helpers. It is checked like anyone else: code 44930566, a search in the Unified State Register, and the register of non-profits, where the fund has been since 3 May 2023.

The hardest thing is to put the questions to your own people. But most collections among acquaintances fail the check not because of deceit but because of disorder: the money goes to a personal card, no one counts the amount, and a month later no one remembers how much was raised.

Questions that do not cause quarrels go like this. Who is the recipient and have you seen them yourself. What the amount is made up of. Where and when the report on what was spent will be. The Cyber Police also advise asking for reports from previous appeals, and this is a normal request: a person who is really organising something will answer in a minute.

A special case: an acquaintance's account may have been hacked. If the request came in a private message, the tone is a little off and the payment details are new, contact the person through another channel, best of all by phone. The Cyber Police advise the same. One call is cheaper than a transfer.

The first step is the bank. Call the hotline, the number is on the back of the card and in the app, give the time and amount of the transfer, ask them to register the complaint and note its number. The free legal aid system advises the same order: first notify the bank, then file a report with law enforcement.

The second step is the police. A report is accepted at the nearest station, number 102 works around the clock and calls are logged. A report can be submitted online through the Cyber Police's electronic citizen appeals system: the address cyberpolice.gov.ua/declare leads to ticket.cyberpolice.gov.ua. The Cyber Police service line 0 800 50 51 70 works Monday to Thursday from 9:00 to 18:00, and on Friday until 17:00. The National Police hotline is 0 800 500 202, and free legal aid is 0 800 213 103.

At the same time, complain where you found it: on the social media page, the channel, the advert. This does not return the money, but it shortens the life of the scheme. Take screenshots before complaining, together with the page address and payment details, because after a complaint all this often disappears.

And a separate rule: do not transfer anything “to get back what was lost”. An offer to return what was lost for an extra payment, a fee or the services of a “lawyer” is the second episode of the same story.

Sometimes there is no time for registers. Then three rules work. Make a transfer only through the organisation's website that you found yourself, not from a link in a post. Never give out a code from an SMS or the three-digit code from the back of the card, and never give access to your phone screen: none of this is ever needed for a donation. And give an amount whose loss you could take calmly.

One more thing worth remembering. A scammer steals not only your money, he steals trust from those who really take medicine and cheese round to flats. After every exposed scheme people give less to everyone. So five minutes of checking is not distrust, it is what leaves honest appeals a chance.