Very often on social networks you can see calls to help a seriously or terminally ill child with instructions for bank or other accounts. Unfortunately, most of these posts are fraudulent.
One of the most common types of social media fraud has long been the publication of posts asking for help for sick children. As a rule, more than 80% of Vkontakte posts on this topic have nothing to do with real patients, whose photos were used. Or a fraudulent scheme is used, when money is collected by a registered charity fund, working with the parents of a deliberately palliative (hopelessly sick child), who are taught that the patient can be cured abroad. The child, however, dies, and most of the funds remain in the accounts of the "charitable foundation".
Checking the activities of a charitable foundation
If such publications (groups or accounts) catch your eye, and quite often, it is best to check whether the fund is registered with the Union of Charitable Organizations of Russia. Also, you can check the registration on the website of the Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service or at the nearest branch of the Federal Tax Service (the state duty for reference information is about 200 rubles). Charitable organizations entitled to fundraising must be registered with the tax authorities and must be in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. If organizations are on the list, it is necessary to check the compliance of the activities of the organization with the law and what they do on social networks. If all the documents are in order, you can carry out an additional check by calling the indicated phone numbers and asking for the office address. Real foundations always have a headquarters.
In order to find out whether the money is really going for its intended purpose, to each specific child, you can request family contacts - the address, phone number of the parents, and ask to come to help with something personally. Naturally, a real foundation will not refuse such assistance, while scammers will come up with excuses in order to prevent a person from seeing a sick child.
In any case, having ascertained the fact of fraudulent activities, you should immediately contact the police.
Methods of psychological defense
In addition to such an active reaction, other types of responses to requests for help on social networks are possible. Psychologists recommend not to forget that very often such publications are aimed at forming in people a sense of guilt for their well-being and, at times, can pose a great danger to the psyche. It is always worthwhile to carefully filter real and virtual life, not forgetting that social networks are a source of distorted and sometimes just fictitious information.
