Charity has to return €130,000 of fraudulent payments

A Co Kildare-based charity has had to return more than €130,000 in donations in recent weeks after its website was targeted as part of a credit card scam.

The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation said it had provided rebates on more than 1,000 fraudulent payments put through its website between March 22nd and April 30th.

Brian Honan, a Dublin-based cyber-security consultant, said charity websites were regularly targeted by those involved in credit card fraud as making a small donation is a good way to check if the numbers work.

“People checking their accounts or balances might not twig a small donation to a charity whereas if you see an iPod being bought on your credit card you might say ‘I don’t remember getting an iPod’ and report the card details as being stolen,” he said.

"Once they verify the details are still active they can use the credit card for further fraud or sell it on to other criminals. The details have a higher value once it's confirmed they can be used," he said. The donation amounts ranged from 2 cents to €3,000 and were made from skimmed cards linked to financial institutions in countries such as Luxembourg, Venezuela, South Korea, Puerto Rico, Italy and Ireland.

The foundation said that on a single day last month it received 190 such donations totalling more than €42,000.

Jack & Jill chief executive Jonathan Irwin said there had been a steady flow of such transactions going back about 15 months but that the rhythm had intensified recently.

Mr Irwin said the Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation was a relatively small charity and that it was “ mindblowing just how much of our staff’s time is being wasted on this”.

Mr Honan said such instances could have a negative impact on the reputation of a charity even though they were an innocent party in the context of the scam.

Mr Irwin said the foundation had notified its payment processor Realexof the situation. and marked each piece of correspondence with the words “fraud alert”.

A spokeswoman for Realex said the company did not comment on individual cases but that it provided fraud management tools to merchants to manage such cases. According to its website, Realex provides payment processing services to firms such as Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic and Party Poker.

Mr Irwin said the €130,000 was a significant sum to the charity given it had a budget of some €3 millon annually.

“Having €130,000 would allow us to provide one month of nursing care for 300 Jack & Jill babies,” he said. “It horrifies one to think there is so much money sloshing around and that charity website are being cynically used to test security programs.”