Help Ukraine 🇺🇦 Scam

ESET researchers have spotted a bevy of websites that solicit money under the guise of charitable purposes. They tend to riff on a similar theme, making emotional but nonetheless fake appeals for solidarity with the people of Ukraine or urging the public to help fund the country’s defense efforts.

One scam page blares “THEY NEED OUR HELP” over images of war, adding, “The Ukraine situation is terrible. Donate for support” and noting that it accepts American Express, Apple Pay, MasterCard, PayPal and Visa.

If you read between the lines, however, none of these sites promises that anything you donate will actually go to relief agencies aiding Ukraine in any way.

The websites make very vague claims about how the ‘aid’ will be used,” noted Foltýn. “It should also be obvious — upon closer inspection, anyway — that none of them represents a legitimate organization.”

The ESET blog post listed the URLs of what appear to be Ukraine-charity-scam sites, including help-for-ukraine[.]eu, tokenukraine[.]com, supportukraine[.]today, ukrainecharity[.]gives, ukrainesolidarity[.]org, ukraine-solidarity[.]com and saveukraine[.]today. If you land on one of these, click away.

If you want to donate money to Ukrainian relief, make sure you’re dealing with a legitimate organization. Don’t click on donation links that come via email, text message or social media, and don’t donate cryptocurrency, gift cards or wire transfers.

Go to the websites of well-known organizations such as the Red Cross, Save the Children, UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders. We also have a roundup of how you can help the Ukraine people through donations.