The Honolulu Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to remind the public there is a potential for disaster fraud and scams in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yutu. <\/p>\n
In the wake of natural disasters, many individuals feel moved to contribute to victim assistance programs and organizations across the globe. The FBI reminds the public to apply a critical eye and conduct due diligence before giving to anyone soliciting donations on behalf of disaster victims. Solicitations can originate as emails, websites, door-to-door collections, mailings, telephone calls and similar methods. <\/p>\n
Before making a donation of any kind, consumers should adhere to certain guidelines, including the following: <\/p>\n
1. Do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) incoming e-mails, including by clicking links contained within those messages, because they may contain computer viruses. \u2028<\/p>\n
2. Be cautious of individuals representing themselves as victims or officials asking for donations via email or social networking sites. \u2028<\/p>\n
3. Beware of organizations with copycat names similar to but not exactly the same as those of reputable charities. \u2028<\/p>\n
4. Rather than following a purported link to a website, verify the existence and legitimacy of non-profit organizations by using internet-based resources. \u2028<\/p>\n
5. Be cautious of emails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files, because those files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. \u2028<\/p>\n
6. To ensure that contributions are received and used for intended purposes, make donations directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf. \u2028<\/p>\n
7. Do not be pressured into making contributions; reputable charities do not use coercive tactics. \u2028<\/p>\n
8. Do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions. Providing such \u2028information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft. \u2028<\/p>\n
9. Avoid cash donations if possible. Pay by debit or credit card or write a check directly to the charity. Do \u2028not make checks payable to individuals. \u2028<\/p>\n
10. Legitimate charities do not normally solicit donations via money transfer services. \u2028<\/p>\n
11. Most legitimate charities maintain websites ending in .org rather than .com. \u2028<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our hearts go out to the people in the CNMI at this time,\u201d said FBI Honolulu special agent-in-charge Sean L. Kaul, \u201cIt is important during times of crisis, we remain vigilant to the numerous types of scams that divert resources from genuine recovery efforts.\u201d <\/p>\n
You can report suspicious email solicitations or fraudulent websites to the FBI\u2019s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. \u2028(FBI)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Honolulu Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to remind the public there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,190,67,23107],"class_list":["post-287681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-natural","tag-people","tag-super-typhoon-yutu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}