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morantis (OP)
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December 12, 2015, 08:52:02 AM |
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I know that many people will look at something like this and think of it as a scam. I completely understand and I know about scams and honestly know how to do them properly. This is not scam. We are trying to help. To help you determine some things about charities and businesses that collect for them I am going to share some BUSINESS LEGAL FACTS.
These are true for Florida, United States, not sure about other states or countries.
First and foremost, when we eventually make money with this coin, this is what is going to happen. We take out the expenses and donate 100% of the rest to the charity. However, you will be interested to know that a company or individual can legally use the name of a charity providing that they give a minimum of 3% of the net money collected. That means 3% after expenses. However, if asked a company or individual must provide a written statement as to what percentage they give of their net gains.
So, you ask a website owner, "What percentage of this donation are you giving to X charity?" They reply 1000%. Have you beaten the scam? Not yet. I own a company and have my own individual income sources so I am not paying myself for services to this coin. However, that is a common way to get around giving your full $100 to a charity. A person can start the company, hook up with the charity and then pay themselves any salary that they want. They can even pay out bonuses for high collections. That means your $100 to X charity may be paying the company owner $500 per week or even more. Also, companies aligned properly with a charity can operate at a loss for much longer without explaining themselves to any government service than a regular corporation.
But what about the half scam/half real. More interesting laws that have come up because of the internet. You can use a picture without copy right infringement by changing 100 pixels. Does that mean that a website with a small American Cancer Society logo in the corner MUST be legal. No, take a Wordpress site for example. That small logo may be derived from a huge picture. So the scam owner goes to the ACS website and downloads the largest, but clear image of their logo, fires up Photoshop and alters the bottom line of pixels, say 200 in all. They upload that huge picture and Wordpress compresses it for the site. No one can tell the difference. You can also download a PNG and simply add white or black to the entire transparent background and be more than legal. Orrrrrr....the website does not use the logo as their own, but rather publishes an article on their site about the ASC, inlcuding(for reference), the logo. It is like talking about the president and including a picture of the White House Seal, way up top, near the header and hoping people assume that they are on an official White House website.
The outright scam. The above assumes that a person is trying to be legal enough to not go to prison. There are those that just outright steal in the form of donations. How do we ferret those out? What are the facts? Fact one, Paypal has its own rules. If I sell you a box for ten dollars and you do not like it, Paypal will assist you in getting your money back from me or they will simply pay you and deal with me separately. However, there is no recourse with Paypal on intangible items and services. You may get it started and you get get your money back, but a smart scam artist can stop that and get those back in their hands with a single phone call to Paypal. Scam or no scam, be careful paying with Paypal for anything that is not a solid object. Verified means very little on Paypal also. If the scammer wants to get paid, they will likely have bank account with their Paypal account and that is all it takes to be verified pretty much. Also, get the Paypal debit card. It lets you transfer Paypal funds to the debit card. That way you can control how much money a person has access to, because once you give that Paypal or credit information out to the wrong person, consider the balance of the account you used gone. I transfer just enough to the card to pay for a possible edgy online purchase and will not put more money on that card for at least two days. You cannot directly move money from the card back to Paypal, keep that in mind, so if you have to cancel the card for a new one, those funds are frozen until the new card arrives. More Paypal you say? A bank to Paypal transfer takes 3-5 days. However, if you send a request from another Paypal account to the one with the bank account it pays instantly. You can then transfer that money back to the other Paypal account or whatever. This is not true of the e-check.
SSL? SSL is simply a protective protocol for your information from outside hacking. It means that the information going from your computer to the website and back again is encrypted. That means nothing about the website owner or the site itself. With SSL you don't have to worry about anyone else stealing your money before the scammer does. It is many times free to get SSL with the right hosting package.
Your best tools against online fraud, the internet and a real bank. So here you are looking at a site collecting for Animal Abuse. Nice logos, propessional look, Paypal and other ways to pay, what now. First, look up who registered the site. It is not always available, but most of the time it is. So, John Davidson Peters is the website owner, the website is in Cleveland, OH. Google the persons name by itself. Why does John live in India and operate a Ohio website or vice versa. With the internet, it is possible to run a web business from one continent to another, but read the site, does it claim to be based in Cleveland or is that where the hosting account is?
Google image search....an awesome tool. Download the pertinent pictures from the site and save them to a temporary folder. Open up Google and click on Images or Image. There is an icon to upload an image and search for it. My favorite scam catch is this moment. Google image search brings up occurrences of that image and others like it on the web. I love it when the scammer picked the very first image that came up. This does not mean they are scamming, but it is just a little point not in their favor. Between the image search and the name you should have seen some social accounts. You look at the site and see that John and been collecting donations for a year, but never even gave it a single mention on Facebook or anywhere. Now, someone starting a site to help those in need may also have downloaded that same image, but just keep the fact in mind.
When getting close to making a donation, click all the same-site links and look for broken pages. Send an email through the form on the site and see what the response time is. What is the email address? This is question for you to ask. If you are seeing a website that displays anything at all, the site owner had and has access to create email addresses for the site. Johntheman.com, if it was real, is hosted somewhere. Almost every hosting service lets you create email addresses. Try to avoid sites that use Gmail for their professional emails. Look for addresses that come from the site. Ok, so you emailed a simple question to the private email for the site. Finally Google all these things, we are using Company A as the business and John as owner, the website URL, the website title, Company A, the owners name. Do these separate and then do them again with the word scam in the search.
Do not forget, we have all had a reason that we were personally angry at someone in a business. Maybe it was their fault, maybe it was yours, but you then proceed to tell everyone the nasty truth. That is how bad reputations get started. If you are going to complain, be honest and also try all means to work with the owner to get things resolved. You can also look up in Google any business papers they have filed with the state/country. It is rare to Google straight to them, instead Google "business records online" and it is up to you whether you add your state name to be more specific. In Florida, we have sunstate.org. Lastly, ask people you know, they may have had experience with the site before. Also, Google the business name again start looking for a near exact copy. If one scam sites nets you $1000, then two sites will get close to $2000...and so on.
So here are some steps to a safe purchase...I suggest using a pin and paper to keep track of the check up.
1. Check out the site and read almost everything. There should be a clear and concise layout no errors. Look in the FAQ and elsewhere for specific rules and conditions for purchases.
2. Google everything about the site, including the images.
3. Social Media. Check Twitter, Facebook and the other popular social sites and look up your new friend. You may get lucky get to talk to them a bit.
4. Move enough fund to the Paypal Debit card for the purchase. If there is anything in the way, get rid of it. Do not add more money to card until you are positive that all is well.
5. Make your purchase. Make sure that if it is tangible that you keep it in the bag and safe from moisture and dirt. If something is wrong, contact them. Be nice and polite, they are likely going to replacement the items. If there is an issue, contact the highest level of employee if you run into a dead end with customer service. Make sure you contact the right company. Remember, in an eBay sale gone wrong, contact eBay not Paypal. Keep your calm. The calmer you are the better the chance of getting through this. Also, let them know they did a good job and spread the word. The same is true of negative talk. You can tell someone you would suggest not eating a "John's Diner", but do not lie just to turn them against the place. Share what happened to you and nothing more.
Ok then, I hope this gets the ball rolling. There are many ways to catch and scam, people wanting money wired to God knows where, blank and sparse websites that have nothing but a half a paragraph and a Paypal button, fake Paypal forms that phish your information, websites that change every week and such. This is not a direct response to anyone here, simple some useful information to be safe. There are also those sites that simply die without reason and keep any cash and coins they have. Most people assume they have pulled the site and ran. If that is the case, I have always found that to be dumb. I think they should bail and leave the website in tact. No one gives things a second thought once they have decided to work with a website, but when it is just gone one day, they start to bitch and gather more people to fact that terrible scammer...lol. Bear in mind how ever that there is a cost involved to do anything on the internet.
The servers we are using now are pretty cheap, but one day more power will be needed. I have set aside the budget to cover the next six months, but these servers are not too much, as I said. The point is that maybe the person who owned the website you were looking at simply went broke and could not do a thing to stop it.
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