Bayou Bamboozling

Via Drudge:

KATRINA SCAMS EMERGE
Wed Sep 07 2005 17:40:55 ET

Even as Americans rally to make donations to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Internet is brimming with scams, come-ons and opportunistic pandering related to the relief effort in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -- and in greater numbers and varieties than any past disaster, according to Thursday editions of the NEW YORK TIMES.

Florida's attorney general has already filed a lawsuit against a man who mounted one of the earliest networks of Web sites -- katrinahelp.com, katrinadonations.com and others -- which purported to collect donations for victims of the storm. In Missouri, a much wider constellation of Internet domains -- with names like parishdonations.com and katrinafamilies.com -- displays pictures of the flood-ravaged south and drives traffic to a single site, InternetDonations.org, a nonprofit entity with apparent links to a white supremacist group.

Pretty despicable if true.

I don't know whether the Florida AG's suit has merit, but the alleged Katrina-squatter appears to be Robert E. Moneyhan, who, per Jacksonville news site News4Jax.com, is said to have solicited donations to his personal PayPal account through his newly registered sites.  According to state investigators, the donations would not have benefited hurricane victims and Moneyhan was not registered to solicit donations.

After a judge filed an injunction stopping him from soliciting donations on Web sites, it appears the domain names are being offered to the highest bidder.

The domains have since been transferred to Kevin Caruso of Chula Vista, CA.  According to a post bearing Caruso's name on NamePros.com, Moneyhan handed over the sites gratis:

Through the grace of God, a fine gentleman by the name of R. Moneyhan, as well as several citizens from the city of Tulee, Florida, donated Katrina Help.com to Project Care.com. They are angels.

Moneyhan may or may not be a fraudster.  But he's probably not a strong contender for "angel" or "fine gentleman".

In any event, following the transfer (whatever the terms may have been) Kevin Caruso is now the registrant or owner of [at least] the following domains, according to register.com:

kevincaruso.com
kcregister.com
katrinarelief.com
katrinarelieffund.com
katrinadonations.com
katrinahelp.com
tsunamis.com
PreventSuicideNow.com
projectcare.com (the ostensible parent organization of the above), and
MegaCheapDomains.com ("A Kevin Caruso Company")

None of Caruso's sites appear to solicit donations (other than to encourage visitors to give to legitimate charities).  In fact, many include what seem to be fairly comprehensive, if somewhat scattered, collections of resources for people in one or more of the above categories of distress.

Still, the site pointed to most often by its counterparts - preventsuicidenow - which Caruso has the odd proclivity to type "Prevent Suicide Now.com" (odd because the spaces serve to render the URL invalid), shows up notably elsewhere on the web.

At Amazon.com, Caruso's suicide prevention site has garnered a total of 31 user reviews in the last 8 months.  But strangely, all but 6 were posted on just two days (12 are dated January 11, and 13 are dated August 7).  The synchronized reviewers, bearing unique names and hometowns (but all offering similarly superlative reviews), have the same odd proclivity to type the URL "Prevent Suicide Now.com".

One of the 6 that's not like the others had this to say (emphasis and excerpting mine):

Kevin Caruso seems to have no personal experience with suicide yet boasts himself to have one of the best sites out. The reason he has so much information and names is by stealing them from other sites, including my son's name. It took me a long time to place my son on a suicide memorial wall and I did not do that thinking it would be taken and used elsewhere for monetary gain. [Caruso] owns his site along with kcregister.com that hosts his site - he promotes gambling and 'adult' sites which both are known to aid in the increaisng suicide numbers.

I have requested repeatedly to him to respect my son and my grief and remover my son's name from his site - no reply...

Other than as summarized above, I know nothing that otherwise supports or refutes Caruso's credentials or the reviewer's claims.

But she is correct about the gambling and the porn.

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Elsewhere on matters of hurricane hoodwinkers:

- Rogers Cadenhead discusses the Moneyhan-Caruso situation at Workbench.
- Michelle Malkin is all over reports of FEMA fraud.
- Soon-to-be fellow CFE Jim Downing is tracking a slew of reported Katrina-related scams.

Update:  The New York Times piece presaged by Drudge.

Update:  Experts Warn of Katrina Identity Theft, from the Washington Post.