A tragedy makes the news and within hours there are a dozen fundraisers for it. That's not sinister β it's how people help now, and the overwhelming majority of campaigns are started by real people raising money for real needs. But the same rush is cover for a small number of fakes: someone lifts the photos and the story from a genuine page, or from a news article, and points the donations at themselves. The FTC flags disasters and high-profile tragedies as exactly when this spikes, because that's when people give fast and check later.
This guide isn't about declaring any particular campaign fake β that's not a call to make from the outside, and a real family in a bad month shouldn't be branded over a quiet comment section. It's a repeatable way to raise or lower your own confidence before you give. Most of it takes under a minute, and the first check does more work than all the others combined.
The checks that actually sort it out
You won't need all six every time. Any single one that fails hard is usually enough to hold off and look closer.
Reverse image search every photo on the page
This is the single most useful check, and the FTC names it first for a reason. Save the campaign's main photo (or screenshot it) and drop it into Google Lens, TinEye, or Yandex. If the same face or scene turns up on an older post, a stock-photo site, or β the real tell β another fundraiser running under a different name, stop there. Copying a stranger's tragedy and photos onto a new page is the most common way these scams are built. A genuine organizer's images usually trace back to that person's own social accounts, not to five unrelated campaigns.
Find out who started it and how they know the beneficiary
A legitimate fundraiser is clear about one thing: the organizer's relationship to whoever gets the money. "I'm Maria's sister and funds go directly to her" is checkable. "All proceeds go to the victims" with no names, no connection, and no way to find the organizer off the platform is not. If a friend shared it, message that friend directly β not in the comments β and ask what they actually know about the person behind it. People reshare emotional appeals without vetting them all the time.
Check that the specifics hold up outside the page
Real stories leave a trail. A named hospital, a town, a date, a company that laid people off, a crash that made the local news β these can be confirmed somewhere other than the fundraiser itself. Open a new tab and search the key details. If the campaign describes a major public event but nothing about it exists beyond the donation page, treat that absence as the finding. You can run the underlying claim through a fact-check search to see whether it's a real, reported event or a manufactured hook.
Confirm you're on the real platform, not a look-alike
Read the address bar. The donation form should live on the platform's actual domain (gofundme.com, for instance), not a near-miss like gofund-me.org or a random site that merely embeds the logo. Scammers spin up copycat "donation" pages and spread the links after disasters. If a post pushes you to a site you don't recognize, type the platform's name into your browser yourself and search for the campaign from there instead of following the link you were handed.
Watch the payment method β this one is close to decisive
Give through the platform's own checkout, where the transaction is recorded and protected. The moment someone steers you off it β "just Zelle me," "send it on Cash App to skip the fees," or worst of all a wire, gift cards, or crypto β you are looking at a scam, full stop. The FTC is blunt about this: those payment methods are chosen precisely because they're hard to trace and nearly impossible to claw back. A real organizer has no reason to move you off a system built to get the money to them safely.
Read the room: who's actually supporting it
Scroll the donations and comments. On a genuine campaign you'll usually see named friends and family chipping in early and leaving specific, personal notes. A page raising a large sum with only anonymous donations, generic one-line comments, or total silence from anyone who'd obviously know the person is worth a second look. It isn't proof on its own β new campaigns start quiet β but paired with any flag above it should slow you down.
Start with the photo β here's why
If you do only one thing, reverse image search the main photo. Scammers are good at writing a moving paragraph; they're far less able to produce original images of a person they've never met. So they reuse β pulling a picture from a news story, a real family's Facebook, or an earlier legitimate campaign. The search catches that reuse in seconds. A photo that only exists on this one page, tied to this one name, is a good sign. A photo that's been living on the internet for three years under someone else's name is the answer.
If you're not sure how to do it from a phone or which engine to use for a screenshot, our reverse image search guide walks through it, and finding where a photo was taken helps when you want to check whether an image really matches the place the story claims.
The one protection that's actually built in
GoFundMe runs a donor-protection policy it calls the Giving Guarantee: if a fundraiser is found to be misused, donors can request a refund of up to $1,000 per campaign, provided they ask within a year. It's a genuine safety net β but read the condition carefully, because it's the whole lesson of this guide in one sentence. It covers money given through the platform. A donation you sent by Zelle, Cash App, wire, gift card, or crypto because someone told you to "skip the fees" is outside it entirely, with nothing to claw back. The protection exists precisely at the checkout the scammer is trying to pull you away from.
When to run the full check
Give the quick glance to any fundraiser; run all six checks when the appeal is tied to a breaking disaster, when it reaches you from a stranger or a reshare rather than someone you know, or when it's pushing urgency ("donate in the next hour," "they need surgery tonight"). Those are the exact conditions scammers design for, because urgency is what stops people from pausing to look. A real need rarely evaporates if you take sixty seconds to check first.
If you already gave and now you're unsure
Request a refund through the platform
If you gave on GoFundMe specifically, its Giving Guarantee lets donors ask for a refund when a fundraiser is found to be misused β up to $1,000 per donor per campaign, as long as you request it within a year of donating. That protection only applies to money given through the platform itself, which is the whole case for never paying off-platform.
Dispute the charge with your bank
If you paid by credit or debit card and the platform's own process doesn't resolve it, call the number on the back of your card and dispute the transaction. Cards offer chargeback rights that a wire, gift card, or crypto payment simply doesn't.
Report it so the next person doesn't fall for it
Flag the fundraiser to the platform, and in the US file with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Reports are what get copied campaigns and stolen photos taken down before the appeal spreads further.
If the appeal reached you as a text or a forwarded message, the same instincts carry over β our guides on scam text messages and spotting a fake URL pair closely with the platform and link checks above.
Not sure the story behind an appeal is real?
FAXTR searches 100+ fact-checking organizations in one query β check whether the event is real reporting or a manufactured hook, and report the fakes you run into.
Sources: FTC Consumer Advice, Donating Through Crowdfunding and Fundraising Platforms; FTC Consumer Alert, Before you donate, find out where the money is going; GoFundMe, Donor Protection: The Giving Guarantee. Published 2026-10-06.