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Charity Scams Warning

Charity Scams (Added: December 05, 2008)

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By CNN/Sandra Endo
Published: December 05, 2008

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Many charities rake in money around the holidays to help those in need. But there are some scams to watch for and ways to make sure the charities are legitimate.

It's the season for giving and many people are opening up their wallets to help others in need. But making sure you're giving to the right cause is key.

One useful site is called guidestar.org.

(Sally Greenberg, National Consumers League)
"You want to make sure that you're not giving to a charity that's taking the money and running and the way to do that is check out the guidestar site. You can see if its a nonprofit. You can see it's 990 which is the tax form that every charity has to file and there are organizations also that look at charitable institutions to see how much of their money is actually going to the people in need."

Guidestar.org is just one site that tracks charities. Charitywatch.org and Foundationcenter.org are are a couple of others.

A lot of information is available free, but in some cases you may have to pay a fee to get more details about a particular non-profit.
"There was a saying there's a sucker born every minute, well there's a con artist born every minute right along with it."

The Federal Trade Commission suggests these tips for donors: give to well known charities, never give out personal or financial information, and if you give, don't give cash, leaving a paper trail is always best.

According to the National Consumers League, the most common charity scam this year has come from scammers pretending to represent charities related to police officers.