Related Research Articles
A scam, or confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators at the expense of their victims ".
Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Internet fraud is not considered a single, distinctive crime but covers a range of illegal and illicit actions that are committed in cyberspace. It is, however, differentiated from theft since, in this case, the victim voluntarily and knowingly provides the information, money or property to the perpetrator. It is also distinguished by the way it involves temporally and spatially separated offenders.
Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gather money for non-profit organizations, it is sometimes used to refer to the identification and solicitation of investors or other sources of capital for for-profit enterprises.
Email fraud is intentional deception for either personal gain or to damage another individual using email as the vehicle. Almost as soon as email became widely used, it began to be used as a means to defraud people, just as telephony and paper mail were used by previous generations.
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being.
United States non-profit laws relate to taxation, the special problems of an organization which does not have profit as its primary motivation, and prevention of charitable fraud. Some non-profit organizations can broadly be described as "charities" — like the American Red Cross. Some are strictly for the private benefit of the members — like country clubs, or condominium associations. Others fall somewhere in between — like labor unions, chambers of commerce, or cooperative electric companies. Each presents unique legal issues.
A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf.
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the US.
Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony to conduct phishing attacks.
A sucker list is a list of people who have previously fallen for a scam such as a telemarketing fraud, lottery scam, high-yield investment program, get-rich-quick scheme, or work-at-home schemes, or, as used by charities, someone who made a donation. The lists are usually sold to scammers or charities.
Telemarketing fraud is fraudulent selling conducted over the telephone. The term is also used for telephone fraud not involving selling.
A private foundation is a tax-exempt organization that does not rely on broad public support and generally claims to serve humanitarian purposes.
The Spinka financial controversy is a case in which five Spinka charitable organisations under the auspices of Grand Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Weisz, the Spinka Rebbe of Boro Park, as well as Weisz himself, his personal assistant, and five others were charged with various counts of tax fraud and money laundering. Their indictment alleges that the five charities were used to launder money and to avoid payment of tax on taxable income by issuing fraudulent receipts for bogus charitable contributions, and charging fees for transfers of funds. Among those charged are four men from Los Angeles, California and two from Tel Aviv. These include a diamond merchant, a businessman, and an attorney. The five Spinka charitable organizations are Yeshiva Imrei Yosef, Yeshivath Spinka, Central Rabbinical Seminary, Machne Sva Rotzohn, and Mesivta Imrei Yosef Spinka, all based in Brooklyn.
The redemption movement is an element of the pseudolaw movement, active mainly in the United States and Canada, that promotes fraudulent debt payment schemes. Redemption promoters allege that a secret fund is created for every citizen at birth and that a procedure exists to "redeem" or reclaim this fund to pay bills. Common redemption schemes include acceptance for value (A4V), Treasury Direct Accounts (TDA) and secured party creditor "kits," collections of pseudolegal tactics sold to participants despite a complete lack of any actual legal basis. Such tactics are sometimes called "money for nothing" schemes, as they propose to extract money from the government by using secret methods. The name of the A4V scheme in particular has become synonymous with the movement as a whole.
John Donald Cody is a convicted felon who perpetrated several fraudulent activities across the United States since the 1980s. He disappeared from his law practice in Arizona in 1984 after investigators began looking into his activities, suspecting the theft of client funds. In the 2000s, using the alias Bobby Thompson, he ran a fraudulent charity named the United States Navy Veterans Association from Florida. After evading authorities for two years, he was arrested in 2012 on charges associated with fraud and identify theft and ultimately convicted, receiving a sentence of 28 years of prison.
The BitGive Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that solicits bitcoin donations for use in charitable causes.
An IRS impersonation scam is a class of telecommunications fraud and scam which targets American taxpayers by masquerading as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and frozen assets if thousands of dollars are not paid immediately, usually via gift cards or money orders. According to the IRS, over 1,029,601 Americans have received threatening calls, and $29,100,604 has been reported lost to these call scams as of March 2016. The problem has been assigned to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a New York-based tax-exempt private foundation formed in 1988 by Donald Trump and dissolved by court order in 2018 after various legal violations came to light.
Circle of Friends for American Veterans (COFAV), also known as "American Homeless Veterans," was a 501(c)(3) organization that supported veterans and related causes. It was founded in 1993 in Falls Church, Virginia by Brian Arthur Hampton. The charity has faced criticism for allocating only about 10% of its income to charitable causes, with the remainder being paid to fundraisers.
References
- ↑ "Charity Fraud Pleads Guilty". The New York Times. April 20, 1918.
- ↑ McFadden, Robert D. (November 13, 1992). "Small-Change Donations Going to Vendors, Not Charities, Abrams Charges". The New York Times .
- ↑ Saltzman, Marc. "'Hurricane Ian': Here come the scams. (And how to avoid them)". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2022-10-17.
- ↑ "2023-35 ATTORNEY GENERAL LOPEZ CAUTIONS THOSE SEEKING TO DONATE TO VICTIMS OF THE MAUI WILDFIRES TO AVOID SCAMS". governor.hawaii.gov. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
- ↑ "Life Cycle of an Exempt Organization". Archived from the original on 2012-08-29. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
- ↑ "Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) - Tips On Avoiding Fraudulent Charitable Contribution Schemes". www.ic3.gov.
