To wonder if Gofundme is the new thing after a death?

[yankeecandle4]

Serious question.

Due to FB I have seen lots of Gofundme pages set up after the death of a loved one. Mostly (but not always) it has been after the death of a child and is in aid of funeral/headstone or fundraising for the condition that they person died from eg Children's Cancer Fund etc. Completely understandable.

However of late I have seen them with no apparent cause/purpose. This morning there was one "Please keep donations coming in because she doesn't have X in her life anymore" X was not in any way responsible for her upkeep (he was a teen), so I am a bit perplexed at how/why monetary donations are necessary or even desirable.

This is not a thread about grief, but more an etiquette question. Is this now a "thing" to give money to a person when they have lost a loved one, for no apparent reason?

I've never heard of this before!

I've seen this once, the reason given was that the mother of the young person who died was suffering too much grief to go back to work.

I've never seen this. The only gofundme "campaigns" I've seen have been for people who have fallen ill while on holiday abroad and would like help with their expenses.

I saw one recently about funding the funeral. It seemed a little odd to me but hey.

There's one in my area, a young father who had been missing for some months has been found dead and a GoFund me is open for anyone who wishes to donate. It can't replace a father but perhaps the money will help pay for some of his kids' needs.

Oh I've seen several that have made me very .

Mainly sent to celebs on Twitter "please donate or RT this ....'" And when I've clicked them they've been the what I'd call 'x factor' sob stories, my ex kicked me out me and the kids are sleeping in a car trying to raise £10,000. or yes my teen daughter has split from her teen boyfriend please raise £6,000 for her holiday to Disney world to recover.

I do understand that the first situation does happen, I've read enough threads on here to know that relationships can leave people in desperate situations, but as MNHQ say people aren't always who they say they are and gofundme there's no way of verifying who these people are.

Some of the way it's written it's like my god your asking strangers to fund your lifestyle If that was true you'd be rejoined by the council or whatever.

I just think there's a lot of Protenial for abuse and scamming

It baffles me why people's default position these days is to fund raise

Wouldn't touch a one of those with a barge pole. Send money to respectable, audited charities who help people in these situations and have the infrastructure to check out the bona fides, Shelter or Women's Aid or, as someone said above, known cancer charities, sort of thing. Not random bods on the internet.

Why is a funeral one strange? Do you have any idea how expensive they can be? Not everyone has £4000 to pull out of their arse pocket.

Pre-internet, whip-rounds for funerals amongst work-mates or friends used to be quite common when someone with dependents died. But people also took out insurance, a small amount every week to the insurance man who went door-to-door, and it was a bit of a disgrace if you hadn't made provision for your own funeral.

When my son and my daughter died, friends, workmates and others had a whip round towards their funerals.

I have also contributed to many.

I suppose this is the modern day version of that.

I think it's a bit too easy to ask for money these days and that kindhearted people can be quite gullible.

I've seen one raising money for kids whose mum had been murdered-unfortunately by their dad. It was open about trying to raise money to help the grandparents with some of the costs of raising them.

Also seem them for all sorts of random stuff though

Why would you need to raise thousands for a child's funeral when they are generally free in the UK? For any costs not covered, there are government funeral payments and a dedicated charity to help.
Noone needs to go fund me for a child funeral.

What actually happens if someone can't afford a funeral? I thought the state are obliged to offer basic services?

I think the above circs are very understandable. A whip round of help is a lovely thing and demonstrates community spirit etc. But some of these GFM are literally begging. Not "please any help will be greatly appreciated on behalf of X" I have seen ones where the person requesting money is commenting every day insisting on more money. God forbid in those circumstances I would ask if I really had to, for the basics. £5k for a very specialized head stone is not something I would personally contribute a great amount to. In saying that though I have quite unconventional ideas about spending money after someone has died.

Just remembered last year a friend on FB made her own GFM page as her husband got a job abroad but could not get her a visa (as she would not be working there) She wanted £5k for the initial (illegal) entry and moving costs and then a years living costs. That really made me laugh!

A man was murdered in our area last week. Someone set up a gofundme page for the funeral and the Police have warned in the local paper that the fund is a fake.

I thought whip rounds were quite common. Isn't this the modern technological equivalent?

I saw this recently it was a sudden death of a fb friend they wanted to give the money to the family They amount set was £500 years ago I remember collections being done from friends neighbours and a flower memorial pot for the gravestone was bought or money given to family to tide them over maybe its the modern version of that

In fact when my aunt died 2 years ago there was a collection at the church for my uncle

'It baffles me why people's default position these days is to fund raise'

In the US, there is very little in teh way of a welfare safety net.

'Why would you need to raise thousands for a child's funeral when they are generally free in the UK? For any costs not covered, there are government funeral payments and a dedicated charity to help.
Noone needs to go fund me for a child funeral.'

There is a total myth. Where's the 'dedicated charity'? What's its name? My daughter died when she was 9. It was £495. Her plot was £1100. Her headstone was £1900. Do you realise how fucking painful it is to go and see your child, who lays in a grave, with no headstone?

Oh, and you get 3 days off. After that, you aren't paid for time off.

3 days bereavement. For your child.

Government payments. Hahaahaa. You have to get the funeral home to accept them if you qualify. IF. And you're in such a frame of mind after your child dies, you definitely want to get hold of a form and fill out a form. Yeah, that's the first thought in your mind when your child died.

I don't see the problem with GoFundMe. If you don't want to give, don't.

I suppose they make sense. A death can cause lots of unexpected expenses, in addition to the funeral, and when you're grieving the last thing you want to worry about is money. Some of them are for specific things such as headstones which can be really pricey.

I don't object to them. People probably want to chip in so they feel like they've done something helpful. The family can always donate the pot to charity or whatever.

Expat, that's fucking awful. 3 days is inhuman. So sorry for your loss