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While many legitimate charities conduct extensive mail and telemarketing campaigns, particularly during holiday seasons, con artists also defraud good-hearted individuals and businesses out of millions by requesting donations to spurious charitable organizations..
Businesses which are unfamiliar with the charity allegedly represented by any solicitation, should never send funds or provide donations by credit card until the validity of the organization and solicitor can be verified. One way to do this is to request detailed information by mail and then check this out with The Philanthropic Advisory Service, Council of Better Business Bureaus, 4200 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22203 or The National Charities Information Bureau, 19 Union Square West, New York, NY 10003 or the local Better Business Bureau.
Additionally, consumers should be exceptionally skeptical of any mail solicitations, visitors or callers asking for cash donations and should never make checks out to any individual. All donation checks should be made out only to organizations to prevent a con artist claiming to represent a legitimate charity from personally retaining such donations.
Businesses should always be cautious of any charity using a post office box address and should always call the post office where the box is located to confirm the alleged charity is, in fact, the holder of the box. (The Postal Service will confirm the name and street address of business boxholders, but not personal boxholders. Therefore, if the Postal Service advises it cannot give you the name of the boxholder, it is not a box used by the charity in question, but a personal box.)
Additionally, addresses which show a street address and suite number (or "Ste.") often signify private mail box services (such as Mail Boxes, ETC) or so-called "executive suites" which function as mail forwarding services. While many legitimate businesses use such services for convenience (including Loss Prevention Concepts, Ltd.) it is wise to check out these addresses before sending in any charitable donations. Using one of many cross index services on the Internet, it is usually an easy matter to establish what business is actually located at the address.
Also, reverse telephone number searches available on the Internet should be able to match the alleged charity's telephone number to the Charity. If such a check does not come back with a "hit" consumers can, in some areas, check with the local telephone company to determine who the number is listed to. If it is unlisted, it is probably not a legitimate charity.
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