Watch Out For Those Extremely Scummy Disaster Scammers!

Be very cautious when going on Instagram and viewing appeals
to help disaster zones like Australia. There's lots of scams out there. 

Lots and lots of people want to help the people, animals and the entire nation and continent of Australia these days.

Who can blame them? Those extreme bushfires over the past few months have been absolutely tragic. There's big loss of life for people - 28 at last count.

So many Australians homes and livlihoods have been destroyed. So many Australian animals need our help. And the fire season
is far from over, despite recent rains that have thankfully doused some of the blazes.

So yes, give, give, give to Australia!

However, some of the scummiest human beings in the world are on social media, claiming they want to help and are more than willing to take your money toward that aim. But their real aim is to just enrich themselves with your heartfelt but naive donation. To them, the hell with Australia, that wild fire is a great opportunity to make themselves some big cash.

Even better for the scammers, there always seems to be new disasters elsewhere in the world to exploit. It's a constant money making machine to them.

Social media giants like Instagram are willing to help with this scam, because it makes money for them, too.

As HuffPost tells us:

"Popular Instagram profiles are exploiting the crisis for personal gain, making empty promises to plant trees or donate money in exchange for traffic with posts such as "1 LIKE = $1 DONATION."  Some falsely claim to be affiliated with legitimate aid organizations. Others have promoted personal PayPal accounts, urging their tens or hundreds of thousands of followers to donate to them directly while vowing to give those funds to charity later on."

Here's some examples provided by Huff Post:

Instagram accounts @thewildfund and @australiasafety, each have well over 50,000 followers. Both of them said they would donate $1 per like to their "partner," National Geographic. For every follow, each of these said they would give $5.

The accounts got more than a million "likes" and a surge of new followers. That translates into big income on Instagram, but there's no evidence money went to Australians who needed it. Both of the above Instagram pages HuffPost contacted were removed right after that contact, which all but proves they were scams.

Here's more from HuffPost:

"@australiasafety also claimed that it had already given away $450,000, linking to a nonexistent website, australiasafety.org. Neither of the account owners responded to requests for comment."

Of course they didn't.

Facebook owns Instagram, and Facebook really doesn't give a crap if these scams flourish on their social media platforms.  Facebook and Instagram policy is to not run scams on their platforms, but very often, these scam sites aren't taken down unless they generate an outcry or bad publicity.'

Even when they are  taken down, the scammers reappear instantly with new scams.

On the bright side there are other Instagramers who are fighting back against the scammers.   According to Slate, there is an Instagram account called @exposinginstascams, which it calls one of the most diligent bullshit detectors.

Apparently, @exposinginstascams is run by a 15-year-old named Nico from the San Diego area. He's the one who contacted National Geographic (see above) and blew up the scam by making National Geographic aware of it.

Nico told Slate:

"Instagram can be super profitable when it comes to ads and selling accounts....People use emotional tactics to get people to follow them, then they can easily make a big buck off of this exploitation of global issues."

On one other small bright side, Nico has investigated other Instagram accounts that claimed to be raising money for Australia and found them to be on the up and up. He posts links to those accounts. For instance, one Instagram account pledged $1 for every person who shared that Instagram post. About 5,000 people did so, and that Instagram account legitimately sent $5,000 to Australian bush fire relief.

Unfortunately, these truly charitable Instagram accounts appear to be the exception rather than the rule. As Slate writer Jane C. Hu notes:

"....when there's a major disaster in the news, the scam machine runs into overdrive. New accounts (or old ones, repurposed for whatever new disaster has occurred) pop up, and reporting them to Instagram is like whack-a-mole; in spending just two minutes scrolling through posts with the hashtag #prayforaustralia, I found at least three more sketchy-looking accounts claiming to donate up to $10 per 'like.' 

 A rash of fake donation accounts also followed the Amazon wildfire disaster and the Sudan crisis, and I asked Nico why these scams take off. 'People want to help, but they want someone else to do it for them,' he says. 'They want to feel like they are contributing to the world.'"

So how is a poor, compassionate person who wants to help Australia make sure they're not being scammed.

Take Nico's advice. Don't let someone else do it for you.  Or at least investigate to exactly to whom you want to contribute.

I'd avoid Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms when considering giving to any charity.  Look into a charity independently of any social media, and make sure it's well established and has a good reputation.

Avoid the middlemen. Some people who say they will give your money to a major charity are scammers. Others are not, but are so inexperienced in this arena that they mess up, and the money doesn't go to the intended target.

If you insist on donating via Instagram or other social media advertiser, you can tap the menu and select "About This Account," advises CBS News. 

At that point, you can at least figure out when that account joined Instagram, in which country it originates, accounts with shared followers, and you can see all the ads the business is running.  That's a start, at least.

Just so you'd know what you're up against, though, consider this experience the HuffPost had when reporting their story. They contacted one Instagrammer regarding their lie about donating $25,000 to the Red Cross.

The Instagram account holder had two demands: That HuffPost give a shout out to his page in its article, and they wanted to be paid for the interview.

Yeah, pretty lame.