What You Need to Know About Cancer Fraud

Have you ever heard about a neighbor who needs money to pay for her cancer treatment? Or about a poor child in Nigeria who needs medical help? This has always rubbed me the wrong way because no one I know would solicit donations from strangers regardless of their medical condition. It's one thing for a friend or family member to secretly collect donations, but quite another for the victim him- or herself to ask for money from strangers. Unfortunately, cancer fraud isn't all that uncommon and these thieves are robbing millions of people.

The cancer fraud to which I am referring has nothing to do with malpractice or fake drugs, but with people who fake having cancer in order to raise money. In a small town in Virginia in 2004, a woman was found to have raised more than $60,000 from neighbors alone after claiming to have leukemia. It was later discovered that the woman didn't have any cancer at all and was using the funds to finance her business venture.

Unlike other types of scams, cancer fraud is extremely difficult to prove. For one thing, medical records are not available to the public and cannot be subpoenaed for a civil case, which means that either the victim must admit fraud or investigators must figure it out in some other way. Another problem is that most people are too polite to question a cancer victim's motivation for collecting donations, even if fraud is suspected.

Even more disturbing, complaints have erupted from all over the United States about parents using their children as pawns for donations. They claim that their child is afflicted with a terrible form of cancer and that they are unable to pay for expensive treatments and surgery. It is far easier to question the motives of an adult than to deny a child the right to medical help, so people fall for it all the time. Cancer fraud is expected to increase in prevelance over the next few years as more and more people learn about this way to make an easy buck.

So how can you protect yourself from cancer fraud while still helping those who actually need it?