Works with texts, emails, calls, social posts, and crowdfunding appeals — disaster relief, veterans, police/fire, medical.
🔒 Content you paste is never stored, logged, or shared. It is processed server-side and discarded immediately after your result is returned. Verification beats any verdict: legitimate charities appear in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and welcome being checked. This tool informs your decision — it does not guarantee outcomes.
The Red Flags
How charity fraud dresses itself.
Fake charities imitate real generosity closely — but the same tells recur. These are the signals the AI checks your appeal against.
"American Cancer Support Fund" vs. the real American Cancer Society. Near-miss names borrow decades of trust from organizations that earned it.
Fraud campaigns launch within hours of breaking news — before legitimate relief operations even mobilize. Speed plus emotion is the entire strategy.
Real charities accept donations tomorrow. Countdown urgency, "matching expires tonight," and refusal to let you think are fundraising by coercion.
Gift cards, wire, crypto, or cash demanded specifically. Legitimate charities take checks and cards — payment methods that leave records.
"Helps victims" with no specifics on programs, spending, or leadership. Real organizations publish annual reports; fakes publish feelings.
No EIN offered, no listing in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, no state registration. Every legitimate US charity is checkable in minutes — by design.
Examples
Three appeals, checked.
From a mass text to a professional-grade impersonation — how the same fraud scales.
"URGENT: Families displaced by the Texas floods need help TONIGHT. 100% of donations reach victims. Give now via CashApp: $FloodRelief2026 🙏"
Hours-old disaster, personal payment app instead of an organization, "100% to victims" (a claim no real charity can make — operations cost money), and no verifiable entity anywhere. Delete, then give to a named, verified relief organization.
"Good evening — I'm calling on behalf of the National Police Officers Relief Committee. Your household is listed as a past supporter. Officers' families are struggling, and even $25 tonight makes a difference. I can take a card now, or we can send a courier for a check."
Official-sounding name, fake "past supporter" familiarity, and a courier option. Police and fire appeals are a top fraud category precisely because refusing feels disloyal. Real test: ask for the EIN and check it — solicitors for genuine police charities can provide one instantly.
An email from "Red Cross Disaster Response" — correct logo, professional design, photos from the actual current disaster — links to redcross-donate.org, a pixel-perfect copy of the real donation page, complete with a working card form.
Everything real is stolen; only the domain and the destination of your card number are fake. This is phishing wearing a charity's face. The defense is a habit, not detection skill: never donate through emailed links. Type the charity's known address yourself — redcross.org — and give there.
Common Questions
About charity and disaster relief scams.
More Scamanot Tools
Checked the cause. Check the channel too.
Straight Answers
The questions people ask most — answered directly.
How do I verify a charity is legitimate before donating?
Two free checks cover it. First, the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search (apps.irs.gov/app/eos) confirms the organization is a registered tax-exempt nonprofit — search the exact name or its EIN. Second, Charity Navigator, GuideStar/Candid, or the BBB Wise Giving Alliance show ratings, finances, and how donations are spent. A charity absent from the IRS database cannot legally accept tax-deductible donations, and a legitimate one will hand over its EIN the moment you ask. Refusal or evasion on that question is a complete answer.
Why do charity scams spike right after disasters?
Because disasters create the perfect fraud conditions: intense emotion, urgency, saturation news coverage, and millions of people actively looking for a way to help. Scam campaigns launch within hours — sometimes before legitimate relief operations are accepting donations at all — using names, photos, and footage from the actual event. The emotional logic is "act now, victims can't wait," but the practical truth is the opposite: relief operations run for months and your donation helps just as much tomorrow, after sixty seconds of verification, as it does tonight.
Is it safe to give through GoFundMe and other crowdfunding sites?
With eyes open, yes — but understand what the platform does and doesn't verify. Crowdfunding sites confirm payment processing, not the truth of the story or where money ultimately goes; fabricated campaigns using stolen photos appear after every major event. Prefer campaigns organized by people you actually know, or ones a named, verifiable person or organization publicly vouches for. For strangers' campaigns, check whether local news has covered the story independently. For maximum certainty after a disaster, established relief organizations remain the safer channel.
Are police, firefighter, and veterans' charities usually real?
The causes are real — which is exactly why this category is a perennial fraud favorite. The FTC has repeatedly shut down fake badge-and-uniform charities that spent almost nothing on the people in their names. Legitimate versions exist and are verifiable like any other charity: ask for the EIN, check the IRS database, and look up the organization's program spending on Charity Navigator. Be especially wary of phone solicitors invoking guilt or implying local officers know who donated — real public-safety charities don't operate on social pressure.
Why Scamanot Exists
Built by someone who's been there.
Scamanot was founded by Robert Scott Singleton — 63 years old, online since 1992, and a scam victim more times than he cares to count. Car dealers. Email schemes. Fake online sellers. He watched fraud grow from an obscure curiosity into a billion-dollar catastrophe targeting everyday people.
"When it happens, you don't say anything. You just go quiet. Forget about it. Move on. That's what I did for decades. That's what most people do. And that silence — that's exactly what scammers are counting on."
So he built something about it. Every tool on Scamanot is AI-powered, free to use, and built on one principle: nobody should have to just go quiet and move on. Your searches are never stored. The AI runs server-side only. We find the truth. We never expose yours.
Founder
Robert Scott Singleton
Founded
2026
Online since
1992
Data stored
Zero. None. Ever.
