JustGiving, a charity crowdfunding platform based in the UK, recently revealed it has been targeted by fraudsters who have been using the portal for money laundering scams. JustGiving describes itself as the world’s most trusted online giving platform. The platform stated its main mission is to connect all of the world’s causes with people who care, from hyper-local projects to major international charities.
“There are more than 22 million people in 160 countries using JustGiving and every day they use our platform to make a genuine impact for thousands of causes. Our technology allows anyone to become a powerful advocate for a cause they care about, through fundraising, giving, and spreading the word.”
According to BBC, JustGiving had to pull the plug on nearly one hundred campaigns in the past 18 months due to fraudulent suspicions. During a recent interview with the media outlet’s You and Yours program, Jonathan Waddingham, Senior Product Manager at JustGiving, stated:
“The nature of crowdfunding has changed this year. We think this is because of major events like the Manchester bombing or the fire at Grenfell Tower. People are more willing to give to individuals they don’t know, which has meant the risk has changed.”
Waddingham also explained that his team is currently working on ways to prevent fraud from happening on the platform and are able to spot money laundering easily:
“The patterns of donations are different from those of legitimate users. One of the things we look out for is where a page gets a lot of donations from the same people or where a card is used repeatedly or has been rejected before.”
BBC also reported that while donations made to charities are regulated by the Charity Commission and Fundraising Regulator, crowdfunding is still not completely regulated.
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