From people posing as deaf or blind beggars on the streets to fake internet donation links, donation scams or fake charity appear to be common. As part of a series of surveys on China’s civil society (益调查), China Philanthropy Times, together with Sina, iFeng and Wenjuan.com recently conducted a survey on donation scams. According to the survey, nearly 70% of the participants had experienced some sort of donation scams in the past, about 58% said those experiences would make them question charitable donations in the future, but more than 22% said they would continue to contribute to charity work.
As to the methods used to distinguish fake charity events from real ones, according to the survey results more than 44% of the participants would search the internet for related news or other media coverage, and about 40% of them would check the official websites of the host organizations. When asked how to effectively end those scams 39% of people said the money raised should go to qualified and legitimate NGOs, but nearly 22% said there was no way to eradicate scams at this moment, and the only way to avoid such scams was to be vigilant.
