A member of the public has informed APSN that they were approached by a Singaporean Chinese man in his early twenties selling luggage tags and keychains at The Cathay’s Starbucks outlet at around 7.30pm on 6^th December. Dressed in a black Economic Development Board-branded jacket, black polo tee, dark green bermuda and slippers, the man claimed to have been instructed by teachers in APSN to raise funds by selling these products. Police report has been filed for the following incident.

APSN would like to alert the members of public that all APSN fundraising events are managed internally and carried out by our volunteers and beneficiaries who have clear identification tags, organisation-branded attires and fundraising permit from the Singapore Police Force or the National Council of Social Service.

 Beware of Fundraising Scams and Be an Informed Giver

Have you been asked to make a donation on the streets? From time to time, members of the public may be approached for donations to support various charitable or benevolent causes. While most of these needs are genuine, it is always good to be cautious in responding to such appeals.

The following ways will help in ascertaining if a fund-raising activity is bona-fide:

While fundraising can be conducted by non-charities, all public collections of money require the fund-raiser to produce a copy of the collector’s Certificate of Authority, issued by the Singapore Police (SPF) or the National Council of Social Service (NCSS).

You can request the fund-raiser to show you the collector’s Certificate. An NCSS-issued sample certificate and SPF sample certificate is provided for reference.

Apart from requesting to see the Certificate, you can also verify the authenticity of the collections using the following methods:

1. SMS verification service by Charities Unit, MCCY
   SMS “FR<space><licence/certificate number or organisation name>” to 79777.
   (For example, “FR 2011003000″, “FR L/HH/001111/2011″ or “FR Charity limited”.)
2.  Online verification
   via Charity Portal, NCSS website or SPF website
3. QR code verification (for NCSS issued permits only)
   Scan the code with your smartphone. You can download the QR Code scanner software from your smartphone’s app store.
4. Police@SG smartphone application
   Download the Police@SG application and go to “More Links” to assess the Charities and Fund Raising search engine of Charity Portal.

Reporting the Matter to APSN

Should you encounter any suspicious fundraising activities or is in doubt, please alert and report to APSN via email at hq@apsn.org,sg or contact us at 6479 6252 with the following information:

• Name, Age, School of Volunteers/Beneficiaries encountered
• Physical Appearance
• Location where you were approached

* Contents are extracted from MCCY’s tips on informed giving here.