"As World Looks to Help Haiti, Scammers Sit Poised"

"Two that are trustworthy are:
-- Texting HAITI to 90999: The U.S. Department of State's Web site suggests texting "HAITI" to "90999" to donate $10 to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts. The $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill. Or you can go online to organizations like the Red Cross and Mercy Corps to contribute to the disaster relief efforts.

-- Texting YELE to 501501: On Twitter, musician Wyclef Jean, a native of Haiti, notes, "Haiti needs your help text YELE to 501501 and 5 dollars will go toward earthquake relief." Yele Haiti is a grassroots movement Jean has set up to inspire change in Haiti through programs in education, sports, the arts and environment."

Sue

[quote=NightHiker
I didn't see anything about that on the Red Cross website (maybe I didn't look closely enough) but I did see that scammers are already capitalizing on the disaster
[/quote]

The Red Cross does give the text "HAITI" option to receive donations, but it also points people to their International Response Fund for donations too. I suggest that when in doubt, donate directly to a fund.

from http://newsroom.redcross.org/2010/01/12/disaster-alert-earthquake-in-haiti/

12:30am (1/13/2010) You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti.

6:20 pm The American Red Cross is pledging an initial $200,000 to assist communities impacted by this earthquake, and is prepared to take further action as local responders assess the situation. As with most earthquakes, we expect to see immediate needs for food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support.

The American Red Cross is accepting donations through our International Response Fund.

... and I found out that for the text "HAITI" option to give $10 to the Red Cross, 100% of that donation goes to the Haiti relief operation. Mentioned on a local Red Cross twitter page, http://twitter.com/SeattleRedCross.

However you give, you would be helping many who are in need.

Absolutely no offense taken. I'm all in favor of a healthy amount of skepticism :-)

It may interest folks to know that the text HAITI method of getting $10 to the Red Cross Haiti relief fund has already yielded in excess of $800,000 in donations. That's a little bit of good from a whole lot of really good people. I don't speak for the Red Cross I'm just a volunteer, but let me say thank you, it does a heart good to see people step up and help out strangers in their time of dire need.

And the Red Cross has upped its commitment to $1 million from the earlier $200,000 commitment. No doubt more will be on the way.

Gawd, these poor folks hardly had a pot to p--- in before; now that pot is smashed to smithereens and buried under what's left of their infrastructure. It's such a mess; where do you start?

Don't know about you, but I'm going to take a moment to kiss the ground and thank my lucky stars. And then, I think, some extra dollars to MSF.

I was listening to World Radio this morning interviewing a man who had lost one daughter under their house and whose second daughter had both legs shattered to the point bones were sticking out through her skin and her scalp had been tore off. There were no pain meds available for this little girl. She was screaming in the background

Now multiply that by thousands.

Dear God.

-Blast, sick to his stomach

ALL fees are waived for the Red Cross haiti donation.
If you donate $10, the red cross gets $10.

The Washington Post has a photo gallery with some astounding, and gruesome, depictions of the devastation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...ST2010011401110

Although very unlikely because of our building codes in California, still, it got me to thinking--even if I spread stuff around between where I live, work, my car--what if all of them were stuck under a few tons of concrete rubble like so many of the buildings in Port Au Prince? In other words, even a preparedness-minded Haitian could still have ended up with nothing. Even burying a cache in the ground wouldn't help if a hillside denuded of all vegetation slid down and buried it.

Did anyone see that video of some mine or other excavation site? You see the first couple feet of a big dump truck sticking out of this huge wall of light colored dirt that towers over the truck. Apparently there are two more dump trucks and their drivers under that huge pile. A lone guy in a loader is scooping out dirt, but you get the uneasy sense that the wall of dirt is simply going to come crashing down on the loader as soon as he digs away enough dirt from the bottom or a big enough aftershock hits...