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.

Australian Firefighter Saves Baby Kangaroo

A filmmaker and Instagram star who volunteered to fight Australian
wildfires grabbed this baby kangaroo just before flames would have
reach it. Video of the rescue has gone viral.

One of the many heartbreaking aspects of the Australian wildfire crisis is the toll this is taking on animals.

There's been wildly varying reports of how much wildlife has died, but it's clear the toll is devastating.

When you witness just one animal victim,  your heart just breaks.  You wish every animal could be rescued.

Such is the case in the video at the bottom of this post, in which a firefighter finds a baby kangaroo, just inches from a line of flames coming at it.  .

In the now viral video,  fire is creeping along in a forest, and firefighters are trying to stop or slow by spraying water on it from hoses. Suddenly, one of the firefighters, who turns out to be a travel filmmaker and big Instagram star named Sam McGlone, stoops down and grabs the baby kangaroo, which is less than a foot away from the advancing flames. It truly is an incredibly close call.

"I found a baby joey i the fire," McGlone says, turning the camera to face himself.  He wrapped the baby kangaroo in a blanket, fed it some water.

Indications are the kangaroo was sent to an animal rehab center.

McGlone also started a GoFundMe page to raise money to help animals affected by the wildfires. He joins many others, including rich and famous celebrities, who have the money and the influence over their fans to raise a lot of money for Australian human and animal fire victims. t

McGlone rescuing the kangaroo was a bright spot in this horrific disaster, but how many animals died because nobody was in the middle of the fires to find them?  After all, people were fleeing for their own lives and some didn't make it. So far, at least 24 people have died in the Australian bushfires.

It's not clear how many animals died in the fires, but the numbers are huge. According to The Independent, Universityof Sydney ecologists think perhaps 480 million animals have died in the fire,s including 8,000 or so koalas.

Here's the video:

"Superbloom" Dazzling California And Arizona; Stupid People Threaten To Ruin It

A view of this year's Super Bloom in California

A spectacular "super bloom" is engulfing desert areas of California and Arizona after a very wet winter re-energized plants in arid parts of the southwest.

Hillsides there are dazzling with acres and acres and acres of red poppies, along with lupine, phacelia, popcorn flower, lily, snapdragon and varieties of sunflower.

The result are hillsides so colorful that they - I hate to say it - are at least as stunningly gorgeous if not more so than the fall foliage that brings millions of tourists here to Vermont.   Even photos from space are capturing the gorgeous colors of this super bloom

Newsweek calls this "perfect storm" conditions for a super bloom, but of course storm is not what comes to mind when you see photos and videos of these flowers. But storms are why they are there.

In some spots, wildfire heat and smoke can prime the pump to germinate seeds. If it rains a lot in the months following these fires, ideal conditions develop for super blooms.

Which is happening this year.

Of course, everybody wants to see this super bloom, and that brings out the idiots.

The ecosystem in these super bloom sites is fragile, and visitors really must stay on marked trails or else they'll damage the plants and soil, forever wrecking future super blooms. But of course some people don't, because their own Instagram shots are far more important that the blooms, and the future enjoyment of other visitors.

Apparently, getting "likes" on Instagram is much more important than preserving parks for future super blooms.

So they lay down in the flowers for the glamour shot. And doing so means flowers won't grow back in that spot for ages. Thanks a lot, scummy "fashion models!"

In Lake Elsinore, California, officials had to close down access to Walker Canyon becaue the roads, including Interstate 15, got so clogged with visitors. Area officials started a shuttle service, costing $10 per person, to bring things down to a dull roar.

This recent satellite photo clearly shows the bright colors of
this year's super bloom in southern California.

Many of the visitors were also not prepared. These are hiking trails. Outdoors. In nature. And weather.

So people got stuck or mildly injured because they didn't bring decent hiking shoes, proper clothing and water. Plus, some were not in good enough physical shape to hike.

One particularly entitled pair decided to set a helicopter down this past Tuesday in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, says the Los Angeles Times.

Obviously, there is no airport or landing pad in the reserve. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

"'We never thought it would be explicitly necessary to state that it is illegal to land a helicopter in the middle of the fields and begin hiking off trail in the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve,' officials said in a Facebook post along with the hashtag #Don'tDoomTheBloom.

'We were wrong.'"

The pair fled in the helicopter when rangers began approaching to find out what the hell these two were thinking. Officials said they are still trying to identify the helicopter and its occupants.

I certainly can't blame people for wanting to see this spectacular show from nature. We all love to see things like this. Most people are pretty responsible about it, too. I just hope as soon as somebody sees some moron doing something damaging, they get called out.

A little bit of public shaming wouldn't hurt, either.

Here's a nice video tour around Lake Elsinore, California recently:



Once this video gets going after the preliminaries, the views are spectacular: