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Law enforcement officials are warning people to beware of e-mails looking for donations for Hurricane Katrina victims. Chances are, the solicitations are scams.
Already, millions of computer users around the world have received phony e-mails asking for Katrina financial aid.
Several Web pages purporting to help the victims also have appeared.
The owner of a legitimate Web page, www.katrina.com, said she has been offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn over her site to those looking to profit from the disaster.
"As expected, the Katrina phishing scams are starting to roll," said Detective Kipp Loving, assigned to the Turlock office of the Sacramento Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force. "Any disaster, especially the ones where people are likely to react with their emotions, that's where we see these scams."
The latest scam, an e-mail that says its from the Red Cross, came out over the weekend. It's part of the popular scam known as "phishing," in which official-looking Web sites and e-mails trick victims into disclosing personal financial information.
According to several Web sites that track security issues, the e-mail sports the "Secure Site" logo. Upon clicking the link provided within the e-mail, the user is directed to a fraudulent Web site that is hosted in Brazil. Personal financial information is then requested through an online form and, once entered, the user is redirected to the real Red Cross Web site.
On Tuesday, the American Red Cross issued a statement about the fake e-mails and Web sites.
"The American National Red Cross is aware that false Red Cross Web sites and e-mail campaigns directing donations to sites other than those authorized by the American Red Cross have begun to appear. We have also learned of a number of Web sites soliciting donations, allegedly on our behalf," the statement says.
"In order to ensure that all donations appropriately make their way to our organization, are properly acknowledged for tax purposes, and to express our deepest thanks for the generosity of the American public, we have established formal agreements with sites collecting donations. These agreements offer the donating public the assurance that those collecting funds on our behalf will be held to the high standards of stewardship the public expects from the American Red Cross."
The statement listed the only official Web sites that accept Red Cross donations:
www.redcross.org.
Amazon.com
AOL.com.
PayPal.com.
www.wellsfargo.com.
www.yahoo.com.
The phony Red Cross e-mail isn't the only scam that has popped up since Hurricane Katrina.
The Washington Post and interactive encyclopedia site Wikipedia.com both reported dozens of fake sites popping up over the weekend, including www.katrinadonations.com, www.katrinarelief.com and www.katrinahelp.com. All three sites are owned by the same person, identified as "Demon Moon," according to the Internet registry database.
Non-Internet scams also have appeared.
On Sunday, police in Virginia arrested four men who were collecting cash in Fairfax County. All four men were telling people on the street they were with a legitimate nonprofit organization.
Katrina Blankenship, a Web page designer and computer consultant in Virginia, told The Bee on Tuesday that she learned how quickly scam artists work. Within hours of the hurricane devastating Louisiana and Mississippi, she was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for the rights to use her Web site, www.katrina.com.
"A broker in New York offered me a half-million dollars, but the funny thing is he wouldn't tell me what he was going to use it for," Blankenship said from her Virginia home. "Another offered me $200,000."
One person even tried to steal the site from her, she said.
"I got an e-mail that looked like it was from FEMA that said I had to turn my site over to them in light of this national emergency," Blankenship said. "I called up FEMA. It was a scam."
Instead, Blankenship turned her page into a database of links to legitimate donation sites as well as sites that are tracking names and information of missing people.
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