Only use reputable sites when making donations. Established and trusted sites like the American Red Cross are the safest bets to making sure your donations are done securely and support their intended mission. You can also find other reputable charities or relief agencies through reputable and trusted publications, as it is assumed they have done the necessary research on the charities they are advertising.

However, be sure to check your spelling. Authenticity is the key. Scammers spoof reputable agencies and sites by variating the spelling slightly, taking advantage of common typos, and/or using a similar, yet different, name but mimicking the colors, logo, and layout of the reputable site. If the site doesn’t have an SSL certificate on the payment processing page, then that’s a clear giveaway the site isn’t legit. Although scammers can get SSL certificates for their spoofed site, it is difficult for them to do so and maintain the validity from any reputable SSL provider.

Lastly, use your common sense and instincts. If something seems wrong about the situation, there probably is something wrong. Carefully review what you’re doing before proceeding, and even ask someone else if you’re unsure of the validity of a site or agency.

Most importantly, don’t be discouraged by the actions of these scammers. If you feel the urge to donate, please do so. A really safe and easy way to help is via SMS text, courtesy of the Red Cross.

From neighborhood homeowners to professional football players, no one gets a free pass from the grifting scum who live to take advantage of others. Until the happy day arrives when these creeps receive a one-time appointment with a greased and sharpened guillotine blade, people must rely on themselves to thwart these scamsters.

(For those of you horrified at the prospect of beheading career criminals, pretend it’s a rubber blade that’ll bounce on impact and give onlookers a hearty chuckle. Everyone else, feel free to suggest which content network should host the streaming vids of the punishment being meted out.)

To help people recognize when someone besides the oil companies and the taxman may be robbing them of hard-earned wages, a new video series on MSN Money offers help. Hosted by the PBS MoneyTrack duo of investing pro Pam Krueger and TV personality Jack Gallagher, the ‘Scam Alert’ series already has a few videos available for viewing.

Chris Jolley, group manager of the Financial Products Group at Microsoft, called the addition of ‘Scam Alert’ a further expansion of a growing collection of high-quality multimedia for MSN Money. “Pam and Jack have years of experience helping millions of people become more aware of their finances, and we are thrilled to bring them on board,” Jolley said in a statement.

MSN Money has quietly grown into a solid property for Microsoft’s web endeavors. We talked with Jolley in December 2007 about MSN Money’s aims for multimedia and other topics; find that discussion on WebProNews.