Unfortunately, the season of giving commingles with the season of scamming the givers.
Whether those requests for help and money come in the form of an email, a tweet, or a friendly face knocking on your front door, it pays to do a little research before handing over the cash says Mark Fernandes, communications and marketing specialist with the Better Business Bureau.
Technology has allowed some fraudsters to print and display the logos of reputable charities, according to Fernandes.
Typically, a chiseler will apply pressure tactics when asking for money, according to Fernandes.
"Those kinds of pressure tactics are often a bad sign that there may be a disreputable vendor," he says.
Trying to force someone to make a fast decision is often a sign of the scammer, according to Fernandes, who encourages people to ask simple questions.
"People can pass themselves off as being from a legitimate charity so you want to see that they have some basic identification that says they are with the charity," he says.
If they are a representative of a legitimate charity, they will likely not balk at coming back another day after having their accreditation verified, according to Fernandes.
Besides the all-out cons, there are more subtle deceptions, Fernandes warns.
"There could be a for-profit entity behind it.
In one case we saw kids selling chocolates, and it was more of a work program for young people where they only get a small percentage of the actual funds," he says.
Finding out where your money will end up should be a paramount concern, according to Fernandes.
"You always have to ask how much of my donation is going to a charity, who it's going to specifically and if they can provide any proper receipts if it is tax deductible."
In some cases, chiselers use recent disasters to manipulate their targets, according to Fernandes.
"Scammers will take advantage of a dire situation such as Typhoon Haiyan where it's something that's in the public consciousness and oftentimes they'll be sending out spam emails that link back to the typhoon or natural disaster," he says.
Other times, scammers will send out an email including details about being in dire need of money following a disaster and ask you to wire funds.
"This can happen with someone that you may know as their email account may have been hacked," says Fernandes. "Whenever there's a request for money you want to verify the source directly with the person by picking up the phone, calling them or their family members."
While some bilkers seek out their marks, other scammers wait for their subjects to come to them.
Fernandes cautions that it's very easy to start a blog or website that references a real relief effort.
"You do want to check to see if there is a real link. Sometimes they will have images of famous charities on the blog or website and in reality they have no real affiliation, so you want to verify that third party blog."
The same holds true for appeals that pop up on Facebook and Twitter, says Fernandes.
Another wrinkle in the modern scam involves text message short codes, which have become a popular way to make a small donation.
If you are suspicious, Fernandes recommends contacting your cellphone provider to verify the charity is legitimate. In other cases, Fernandes recommends the Giving to
Charity: Information for Donors section of the Canadian Revenue Agency's website.
"Within that section, you can find out information about how much of the donations are going to administrative costs or relief efforts," he says.
The BBB also describes where donations are going and who is involved with the charity.
If you're having difficulty in getting that refund or contact with that charitable agency, then you can make a report.
Both the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre are good resources, according to Fernandes.
