Tips to Donate to Charities Online Safely

Deciding to donate to charities online feels great. But while online giving has become easier than ever, so have online charity scams become more prevalent. With only a couple of clicks, you could find yourself falling victim to cases of cyber attacks. This could be in the form of losing your hard-earned money or personal information to the wrong people.

Luckily, there are numerous things you can do to mitigate your risk and donate to charities online without worrying about a thing. Below are some pointers to help you make online charities safely and effectively.

Check where you’re giving

It may sound obvious, but take it upon you to verify website of organizations before making charity donations online. As a rule of thumb, be sure to verify two different aspects i.e.; legitimacy and nonprofit status. Even if you’re sure about the prospective charitable organization, there is nothing wrong with counter checking its legitimacy.

Scammers rely on a wide range of tactics in designing a look-alike website that can be a near exact copy of your preferred charitable organization. No wonder you should carefully examine the URL of any site before making charity donations online. After all, the URL can be quite difficult for scammers to fake.

Protect Your Digital Footprint

Before sharing personal or financial information with any website, it is in your best interest that search for and read their privacy policy. This action helps you understand if your personal information, or even your credit card number, will be used for any other purposes. The same applies for personal information like your email.

Keep a close eye on vendors and third-party payment companies within a nonprofit’s website that may have different privacy policies than the nonprofit itself. This is mostly the case with links to websites from pop-ups, social media, or email.

If at all you have any doubts, then there is nothing wrong with taking a second look to ensure that where you’re donating is legitimate and not a scam. This will help ensure you make the most of your money when you donate to charities online.

With the above tips, you will certainly donate to charities online safely without falling prey to scammers who are out to steal your personal information and hard-earned money. Make it the norm to verify where you are giving to make the most of your charitable dollars.