A fake charity calls or texts asking for hurricane / wildfire donations
After a hurricane, wildfire, tornado, or other disaster, fake "charities" appear within hours. They call, text, or run social media ads using a name that sounds like a real organization (e.g. "Red Cross Recovery Fund") and ask for donations by gift card, wire, or cryptocurrency.
Also known as: disaster relief charity scam, fake Red Cross / Salvation Army solicitation, hurricane donation fraud
What to do right now
- 1 Do not donate via phone, text, or social-media ad. Donate only through the charity's official website you typed yourself
- 2 Verify any charity at https://www.charitynavigator.org or https://www.give.org before donating
- 3 Real charities accept credit card and check; they do not require gift cards or crypto
- 4 If you donated to a fake charity, dispute the transaction with your card issuer
- 5 Report to the FTC at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov and the FBI's IC3 at https://www.ic3.gov.
Red flags
- ⚠ Name sounds almost like a real charity but is slightly different (Red Cross Recovery Fund, Wildfire Veterans Relief)
- ⚠ Caller is high-pressure: 'donate today, families have lost everything'
- ⚠ Payment requested by wire, gift card, cryptocurrency, or peer-to-peer apps (Zelle, Venmo personal)
- ⚠ Charity cannot or will not give you an EIN (Employer Identification Number) to verify them
- ⚠ Social-media ads with emotional photos and very short URLs (bit.ly, t.co)
After every major disaster, fake charities surface within hours. They use names that sound legitimate, emotional photos lifted from real news coverage, and high-pressure scripts. Real charities care about due diligence; scammers care about speed.
If you want to give: take five minutes. Type the charity’s name yourself into Charity Navigator or Give.org. Donate by credit card on the charity’s own .org domain — never by gift card, wire, crypto, or peer-to-peer. The disaster victims are real, but the right organizations need a few extra minutes from you.