Someone's collecting for a disaster

Within hours of any hurricane, wildfire, or earthquake on the news, fake charities appear. Americans reported about $96 million in losses to fake charities, crowdfunding pages, and disaster-relief scams to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2024. After 2025's hurricanes and wildfires, fake charities collected an estimated $34 million in a matter of weeks.

What it sounds like

"Hi, I'm calling on behalf of the American Red Relief Fund. We're on the ground right now helping families who lost everything in the flooding. Even $20 helps us get supplies to them tonight — can I get your card number?"

The name is close enough to a real charity that it doesn't register as odd. "Red Relief" instead of "Red Cross." "Firefighters Assistance League" instead of a real firefighters' fund. Close enough to pass, different enough to be unaccountable.

What they want: a card number, on the phone, right now, while the disaster is still in the news. Some send a text with a donation link instead. Some set up a real-looking crowdfunding page using photos taken from actual news coverage.

The truth: legitimate charities do not need your gift in the next five minutes. The people they're helping will still need help next week, after you've had a chance to check.

What to do: don't give on the spot, no matter who called or texted you. Hang up, or close the text. If you want to help, go find the charity yourself.

Checking a charity before you give

Two free lookup tools do this in under a minute:

charitynavigator.org — rates how much of a charity's money reaches its cause
give.org (the BBB Wise Giving Alliance) — checks whether a charity meets basic accountability standards

Search the charity's name there. If it doesn't come up, or the name is close but not quite right, that's your answer.

For a fast-moving disaster, the national charities you already know — the Red Cross, Salvation Army, established local community foundations — are almost always taking donations too, and they're easy to verify because they've existed for years.

The tells

They called or texted you — real charities you already support might mail a letter; the ones that cold-call about breaking news are the ones to question
The name is almost right — a letter or two off a name you know
They want a gift card, wire, or cryptocurrency — no legitimate charity asks for these
They pressure you to give immediately — "the need is right now" is designed to stop you from checking
They can't tell you clearly how the money is used — a real charity representative can answer this

What to do

Look the charity up yourself at charitynavigator.org or give.org before giving anything, no matter how urgent it sounds.

Give directly on the charity's own website — type the address yourself, don't follow a link from a text or call.

Pay by card, never gift card, wire, or crypto — a card payment can be disputed; the others can't.

If you already gave to what turned out to be fake: contact your bank or card company about a chargeback, and report it at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Disasters will keep happening, and so will the fake charities that follow them. The habit that handles it is small: look the charity up yourself, on your own time, before you give. Real need survives that minute.