Steve Weisman is a lawyer, college professor, author, and one of the country’s leading experts in cybersecurity, identity theft, and scams. See Steve’s other Con Watch articles.
The recent death of country music icon Dolly Parton has brought an outpouring of emotions and grief from her legions of fans who admired not only her music and acting, but also her extensive charitable endeavors, including the Dollywood Foundation and Imagination Library. Unfortunately, criminals are targeting Dolly Parton’s admirers with a variety of scams, including appeals for donations to charitable organizations that appear to be affiliated with her. Dolly’s family has asked that any donations be made to her Imagination Library, which can be reached through her Dollywood Foundation.
Using AI, scammers are sending emails, text messages, and posts on social media that appear to come from the Dollywood Foundation and contain links that take you to sites that also appear to be legitimate, but are merely AI-created copies of her real charity’s website.
Charity scams in general are a common occurrence. They often proliferate following natural disasters such as wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. These disasters bring out the best in people who want to help the victims. Unfortunately, they also bring out the worst in scammers who see an opportunity to fleece those who are emotionally distraught over the suffering of others, making would-be donors even more vulnerable to these scams.
Charities are not subject to the federal Do Not Call Registry, so even if you are signed up, legitimate charities are allowed to contact you by phone. The problem figuring out of you’re being called by a real charity or a scammer. Similarly, when you are solicited for a charitable contribution by email or text message, you cannot be sure as to whether the person contacting you is legitimate.
Scammers also contact people through social media with pleas for charitable donations. Often these social media posts will contain AI-enhanced photos and videos, making the posts appear authentic.
How to Avoid Being Scammed
Never provide credit card information over the phone to anyone whom you have not called or in response to an email or text message. Before you give to any charity, you may wish to check out the charity with charitynavigator.org, where you can learn more about the charity, including its track record and true address.
Look at the URL of any email you receive that appears to come from a charity. If you are making a payment, you would want the URL to be preceded by https rather than merely http. The “s” means that your communication is being encrypted. While even some phony websites may go the extra step and use encryption, most do not, and so this is an easy way to spot a scam. Also, never use your debit card to make a charitable contribution. While federal law limits the amount of your financial responsibility to no more than $50 if you make a donation to a phony charity using a credit card (and I have never seen a credit card company hold anyone responsible for any fraudulent charge), your personal liability for a fraudulent charge on your debit card is potentially unlimited.
Sometimes carefully checking the domain name for a counterfeit website will provide an indication that it is a scam. If the domain name has nothing to do with the real name of the charity, you can be confident that is a scam. I would caution you, however, that merely because the name looks legitimate does not mean that it is. Often scammers will create phony, but very legitimate appearing domain names.
The Google Safe Browsing Transparency Report is a terrific free service where you can type in the URL and learn if Google’s research indicates the website is a fake.
You can also use Whois.com which is a free service that will tell you who owns a particular URL and how long it has been in service. If, for instance the Dollywood Foundation website you are sent to has only been around six months and is owned by someone in Nigeria, it certainly is a scam.
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