Rescuers receive dozens of e-mails a day asking about surrendering an animal, so when they finally receive a message offering a donation, it seems like a dream come true! But, read the messages carefully, as they may be a scam that could end up costing your nonprofit dearly.

Sadly, this has happened before, and several animal rescues may have lost some money through e-mail scams. Here’s a description of the way many of these scams work:
An e-mail message is sent offering a donation to the nonprofit. A check later arrives that is far above the original donation amount mentioned. When the animal group cashes the check, they are asked by the donor to return a portion of the check. There was an error in the donation amount and it should have only been $100, not $1,000. Please send back the extra $900, or just $800 and keep that extra $100 as a thank you for the trouble. Unfortunately, the original check later turns up as NSF (insufficient funds) or as a stolen check, and the money is immediately taken our of your bank account. Now, your group is out the $900 that you kindly returned to the ‘donor’ and possibly some overdraft and other bank fees.

As always, it’s best to be vigilant in these matters, and to contact a bank immediately if this scenario happens! Most scammers are not detailed in their stories and things don’t add up well. The “Nigeria scam” is another frequently used scam that explains if you can be the American agent to help pay for a wire transaction, then someone in Nigeria (or Ghana, China, or another country) will gladly donate a large portion of money (several thousand dollars) to your group for your trouble. This one is usually riddled with misspellings and poor English grammar, and amounts of money that just seem ludicrous. If someone you’ve never heard of wants to donate $50,000 and they are from another country, or just from another state, it sounds fishy already. Use your best judgment in these cases!

Another sad case is this article that discusses a new method of fraudulent credit card use with charities. Scammers make donations using stolen credit cards on charity websites to see if the credit card numbers work and can be used for larger online purchases. This is currently a problem the Red Cross is facing, costing them money and manpower to track the fraudulent cards. Of course, the charity may also have to return the money!

The best bet is to look at these scenarios with open eyes and use good judgment. If you’re ever nervous about an odd request, such as returning a portion of the money to a donor, then contact your bank immediately to discuss the situation. And, you can also contact the donor’s bank (listed on the check) to verify that funds are in the account to cover the check. In the case of the fraudulent credit card use, it’s best to keep a small buffer of money in your bank account to cover any incidental costs that may come up due to a stolen card being used, or Paypal accounts being frozen. The likelihood that a smaller charity will be hit by this may be small, but it certainly is there. And, as technology adapts, it may become a bigger concern since larger charities may be able to stay on top of the problem, while smaller ones become the newer targets. The donations mentioned in the Red Cross case seem to have been smaller amounts, such as $10 here and there. But, that is the typical donation amount which many animal rescues regularly receive through their Paypal accounts.