Donors Of Funds To Haiti Tragedy Warned Of Scams

Donors Of Funds To Haiti Tragedy Warned Of Scams

January 22, 2010, Auckland, New Zealand – Crimestoppers New Zealand and The Western Union Company (NYSE), a leader in the money transfer segment, who jointly launched the Security Awareness and Fraud Education (SAFE) Programme in November 2009 to promote consumer fraud awareness, urge consumers to be prudent when sending a financial donation to assist with Haitian Earthquake Relief efforts to ensure monies are sent to genuine charities or organisations.

New Zealanders have a history of being very generous towards victims of tragedy. The recent Haiti earthquake has seen these characteristics come to the fore again. Unfortunately past history also shows that tragedies see the activity of scammers accelerate to take advantage of the opportunity.

New Zealand media1 reported recently that an anti-virus company has already detected spam emails soliciting donations, using real addresses and the names of aid agencies.

“Consumers should be careful when evaluating donation programmes related to the earthquake in Haiti,” says Lou Gardiner, CEO of Crimestoppers New Zealand. “They should ask some qualifying questions about the organisations they are seeking to donate to so they can establish the authenticity of the payment channel. If in doubt, seek advice.” Western Union reminded New Zealanders to be a SAFE consumer and send money only to someone they know or whose identity they can verify.

“Be cautious if you receive unsolicited requests to use the Western Union® Money TransferTM service to send a donation to support Haiti from New Zealand,” says Tasko Alcevski, regional director, New Zealand & Pacific Isles, Western Union.

“To prevent consumers from falling victim of fraud, we’ve updated our Agents and frontline associates with possible donation scams and fraud prevention information.” To report information on donation scams, consumers can contact Crimestoppers New Zealand anonymously by calling 0800 555 111 or submitting an encrypted online form via www.crimestoppers-nz.org. If consumers suspect they are victims of fraud, they should contact the police.

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About Crimestoppers New Zealand

Crimestoppers New Zealand is modelled on the UK service, which has been running there successfully for more than 20 years. Its genesis in New Zealand was the 2007 theft of 11 sets of medals from the Waiouru Army Museum. During 21 years of its operations in the UK Crimestoppers has received over 1 million actionable calls which have resulted in more than 90,000 arrests and charges.

Founder, Chairman of Crimestoppers UK and Victoria Cross collector Lord Ashcroft KCMG, helped post a reward for the return of the medals. While in New Zealand, he discussed setting up Crimestoppers here with Police Commissioner Howard Broad.

Businessman and Police advisor John Perham was asked to establish the charity in New Zealand and chair the Board of Trustees. Other trustees are Dr Allan Freeth, Chief Executive of TelstraClear, retired Assistant Police Commissioner Gavin Jones, advisor and director Phillip Meyer and CEO Lou Gardiner.

The strength of the Crimestoppers service is that people who, for various reasons, may have been reluctant to contact law enforcement agencies directly now have a safe way of doing something about family violence, drugs, gangs, fraud, dishonesty and other types of anti-social behaviour and offending.

About Western Union

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta and Pago Facil branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, as well as send payments and purchase money orders. Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta operate through a combined network of more than 400,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. In 2008, The Western Union Company completed 188 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $74 billion of principal between consumers, and 412 million consumer-to-business transactions. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com.

ENDS

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