While the donations campaign for the reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is in full swing, scammers are taking advantage of it to fraudulently collect money. An investigation was opened Friday by the Paris prosecutor's office for "organized gang fraud". Phone calls, websites, jackpots ...: fraud can exist in various forms. Europe 1 helps you spot them.
The scams to avoid
The Heritage Foundation, which is officially responsible by the State to manage donations for the reconstruction of Notre-Dame, calls for vigilance: scammers take advantage of the momentum of national and international solidarity to make money in France. his name. The Foundation filed a complaint Friday after discovering the existence of a fraudulent site and the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "organized gang scam" in order to put an end to these acts and identify their authors.
Refuse all canvassing. The scammers have requested donations through phone calls and mailings, inviting recipients to send their donations via a transfer to a bank account which the RIB is transmitted as an attachment, said the floor.
Already Wednesday, the Foundation warned against the proliferation of scams in France and abroad that were reported to him. A fraud coming from Italy invited for example the "friends of France" to pay donations for "a symbol of our history", via an email with a false logo of the Heritage Foundation, reports Le Figaro . Direct sellers have also tried to go door-to-door in Port-de-Bouc, in the Bouches-du-Rhone, according to Maritima Medias.
The Heritage Foundation has given in a statement the criterion to determine whether the canvassing is that of a profiteer or not: "the Heritage Foundation does not make any phone call by mail, mail or telephone.All these steps are fraudulent".
Attention to the URL. The Heritage Foundation reported Friday to the prosecution and Google the existence of a fraudulent website that uses the terms of its URL. This fraudulent site is the following: https://donfondation-patrimoine-sauvonsnotredame.weebly.com. "Here the fraudsters have taken over the main terms of our URL and put them in a different order, which betrays them the end-of-URL extension of 'weebly.com', which is the name of a generator of free websites ", told the director of the press of the Foundation, Laurence Levy, to AFP.
Prefer certified jackpots. Many kittens have also blossomed on the Internet to help rebuild Our Lady. According to CheckNews, 1,776 had already been created on Leetchi Tuesday morning, the day after the tragedy. They may have been launched by associations active in heritage preservation, such as that of the Observatory of religious heritage, or by individuals moved by this fire, such as that of Laurent Segnis, lawyer and member of LREM, spotted by Le Parisien .
But vigilance must be in order because anyone can launch a pot on Leetchi type platforms. This is why the latter are busy certifying pools, ensuring the identity of the author of the call for donations, his motivations, the identity of the beneficiary and obtaining guarantees: "kitty and beneficiary verified by Leetchi "can we read for example on Leetchi, or the simple mention" Certified "on LePotCommun.
© LePotCommon screenshot
Give priority to official donation sites
Four official sites. To avoid any scam, it is recommended to send his donation to the four foundations labeled by the State and responsible for collecting donations for the reconstruction of Notre-Dame. These foundations are: the Heritage Foundation, the Fondation de France, the Notre-Dame de Paris Foundation run by the Episcopate, and the Center des Monuments Nationaux. The Internet links of these foundations are listed on the government website, which emphasizes that contributions are "transparent and secure". Faced with the proliferation of fraud, the Heritage Foundation, which communicated on these different Internet addresses, now gives only one, to avoid confusion: don.fondation-patrimoine.org
It is also possible to give by SMS by sending "DON" to 92500 to donate 5 euros, or via Paypal when making a purchase with this online payment service. Individuals can also make a donation via 10 contactless kiosks located at the metro station of Paris "Concorde", for donations ranging from 1 to 5 euros. To date, nearly 850 million euros in donations have been raised for the reconstruction of Paris Cathedral, including 15 million euros from private individuals.