• The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection received a consumer complaint about a double currency conversion of a donation to the fundraiser for Ukrainian victims of Russian military aggression.
• The President of UOKiK has initiated an investigation and addressed the payment intermediaries: Pay Pal and Facebook's owner – Meta.
• We will verify whether consumers are sufficiently informed about payment and currency conversion rules.

"I would like to encourage everyone to help Ukrainian victims of war and refugees. All the information about what we can do for Ukrainian citizens can be found on the government website pomagamukrainie.gov.pl. If you decide to make a donation, carefully check the purpose and rules of the fundraiser. I caution against hastily transferring money to unverified charities since there is a risk that they might have been created by scammers. I would like to also appeal to payment intermediaries so that consumers who want to finance aid for refugees from Ukraine do not incur additional, unjustified costs of such action," says the President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny.

President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny is currently veryfying the rules for collecting payments from people who want to help Ukrainian victims of Russian military aggression. These actions are related to a complaint made by a consumer who, in order to help, donated money to one of the fundraisers made available on Facebook by a charity organisation. As they claim, they were not aware that their account would be reduced not only by the amount donated, but also by the cost of converting these funds twice: from PLN to USD and then from USD to EUR. 

The President of UOKiK has launched an investigation into the case, which involves Pay Pal Europe of Luxembourg and Meta Platforms of Ireland (the owner of Facebook). This is a preliminary step in the case analysis, which aims to determine whether consumers donating money to help victims of the war in Ukraine are correctly informed of the fact that their funds will be converted several times, resulting in their accounts being debited with higher amounts than those donated to charities.

• Do you support refugees from Ukraine? Can you provide shelter, financial or material support? Visit pomagamukrainie.gov.pl and find out how you can help.

• Verify fundraisers, read the terms and conditions of payment intermediaries.
• Do not click on links received via text messages urging you to make a donation, do not trust emails supposedly sent by Ukrainian citizens asking for a money transfer.
• Donate to official charity organisations, not to personal accounts.

Consumer support:

Phone: 801 440 220 or 22 290 89 16 – consumer hotline
E-mail: [SCODE]cG9yYWR5QGRsYWtvbnN1bWVudG93LnBs[ECODE]
 Consumer Ombudsmen – in your town or district

Additional information for the media:

UOKiK Press Office
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warszawa, Poland
Phone +48 695 902 088, +48 22 55 60 246
E-mail: [SCODE]Yml1cm9wcmFzb3dlQHVva2lrLmdvdi5wbA==[ECODE]
Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL