There are a million scams out there after the tsunami incident. Do not send money to people who write you sad-story e-mails, because 100% of those e-mails are people trying to scam you out of your money!
Here's one I received this morning:
HelpAid- Sri Lanka
Need Your Help Tsunami Victims ...!!!
Dear Sir / Madam,
Need Your Help Tsunami Victims ...!!!
Sri Lanka, we are the country who lost most of the human lives. When looking back to the past few years, country drawback by mainly activities of politicians , war and the crazy behavior of some people. We feel this a feedback of the nature given to us. Anyway, No one know absolute damage, its saying that around 50000 people dead in Sri Lanka, we cant forget that there are lots of people missing. Along the sea show, there are lots of poor people living. And there are some beaches, ideal for spend a vacation. Lots of places with are tourist attract. Considering above facts there may be high possibility to increase the # of people missing due to this disaster. Sri Lanka is a tiny island, so we have ocean all around us. All around the coast of the country severely damaged.
What we can do in this moment is giving what ever you can to people who needed in that areas. And we kindly request to people around this world to make a real deep feeling abt this disaster. Pls just take a moment to realize that people like u suddenly vanished to water and sand 26th of December. They may not even think , dream abt such an unfortunate.
We are at HeplAid are well experienced social worker organization in Sri Lanka and operate South Part of the country. But our present resources are really not enough to treat this victims therefore please send your contribution to us soon as possible. Even single dollar will play very vital role at this tsunami disaster situation in Sri Lanka.
K.D.H Mudalige
Contact Details
Name : K.D.H. Mudalige
Account No : 0004 5003 0570 Sampath Bank( Boralla Branch) - Sri Lanka
Email Address : helpaid@gawab.com
Web Site :U color=#0000ff http:///Uhelpaid.tripod.com
Tel : 94 777307193
All of these people who send these e-mails are vermin, preying on others' tragedy in order to separate you from your money. These people even have the gall to show explicit disaster photos on their scam web site to make you feel bad - and then to give the criminals your money.
If you look at their site, you'll see it was hastily put together (using frontpage or something similar), and uses a free web hosting (tripod). Lots of spelling mistakes in the e-mail and web site. Obviously, no real organization would do all of that. (And no real organization ever sends mass e-mails to get donations.)
I would love to know whose picture that is on their front page.
Be careful out there.
