‘A like = 1 dollar donation’So Instagram influencers write and sometimes, it must be said, it is true, and their charity is effective and generous. Others are not. And it’s just a hateful scam. The US edition of HuffPost reported the scam which reports that popular Instagram profiles are taking advantage of the fire crisis for personal gain, making empty promises to plant trees or donate money in exchange for traffic with messages like “1 I LIKE IT = $ 1 DONATION”. Some falsely claim to be affiliated with legitimate aid organizations. Others have promoted personal PayPal accounts, urging their tens or hundreds of thousands of followers to donate directly to them as they promise to give those funds to charity later on. But often the promises proved empty and, indeed, many of the pages indicated as fraudulent by HuffPost referred to a non-existent site australiasafety.org. When the newspaper contacted some of the owners of the offending accounts, it received no response.
