Jack & Jill CEO reassures people that online donations at Jack & Jill are secure and much needed, as the Irish children’s charity uncovers credit card scam involving €130,000 fake donations
In the last month and a half we have received and refunded over €130,000 via credit card donations which have been scammed from private credit cards, with individual amounts ranging from 2 cents up to €3,000, with the majority of donations under €5.
These criminals use Jack & Jill and other charity websites to test and verify that the details are still active on the card they have stolen so that they can use it for further, bigger fraudulent transactions or sell it on to other criminals. They were made from skimmed cards linked to financial institutions in countries such as Luxembourg, Venezuela, South Korea, Puerto Rico, Italy and Ireland.
We felt it our duty to go public on this, so that we can alert other charities and remind the public check their statements for these small ‘tester’ amounts which are a sad reality of credit card skimming. I also want to reassure our supporters who kindly make regular donations online to Jack & Jill that our website is safe and secure and that our vigilant online team monitors transactions daily.
We’ve alerted the authorities about this, as well as providing rebates on more than 1,000 fraudulent payments, marking each piece of correspondence with the words ‘fraud alert’. This has taken a huge amount of time in administration, which has been the real cost to Jack & Jill.
Through good monitoring and prompt action we uncovered this scam. We never factored these payments into our budget. These were fake donations that were never meant for us, but part of a skimming racket. However, it is sad to think about all the home nursing hours, over 8,000 in fact, that €130,000 would fund for sick children in every community in Ireland. It’s tough for every charity out there, and a credit card scam like this is cruel and very time consuming.
I want to thank our supporters who donate money by post, by text and online and to reassure them that Jack & Jill has a highly secure online and monitoring system, something we regularly review and update. Their authentic, heartfelt donations are what keep us going.
Thank you, on behalf of the families we support.
Jonathan Irwin
Further info:
Jonathan Irwin 087 2558451 / 045 894538
Carmel Doyle 087 2473537