Is my sister unreasonable?

[newyorkcheeseecake]

A man who I grew up with suddenly passed away at the beginning of the year. My older sister is best friends with said mans sister. He was only in his early 30’s and as a result didn’t have any life insurance. His family aren’t high earners so were understandably worried about how they were going to pay for the funeral. My sister (which I thought was a lovely idea) decided to start a fundraiser on Facebook so that people could donate money towards the cost of his funeral if they wanted to. A lot of friends and people of the community donated including myself, although I only donated £30 as that’s all I could afford. He was a very popular and much loved man and they raised just over 6k in total which covered all of it.

The family were very grateful for the help and he had a lovely send off. My sister, for some reason struggled to get the money at first as it took over two weeks for it to go into her account (not sure why Facebook held onto it but she managed to sort it in the end). The money all went into different bank accounts including her personal account, savings account, isa account and our dads account. She gathered all the money together and gave it to the family. They took just over 5k off her and said that’s all they needed and told her she could keep the rest as a thank you which was around £700-800 give or take. She’s put it into her savings account.

I went to visit her yesterday for a quick catch up and the conversation came up as I asked if she had sorted out the money yet and she told me all of this. AIBU to think this is just wrong? I appreciate she didn’t ask for the money and the family offered it to her but I find it awful that people have donated their hard earned cash (including myself) probably when they were all skint themselves and she’s kept some of it. I’m sure people will call me jealous which is absolutely not the case, I love my sister and I think what she did was lovely and very thoughtful but I just don’t agree with it. It feels really wrong to me that she has benefitted from other people’s money and I think giving it to a charity would have been better personally or maybe organising some sort of gathering/party in our friends name.

As far as I know she has only told me about this and I wonder if it’s because she knows people wouldn’t be very happy about it. It really has made me think twice about donating to these sorts of fundraisers now.

What do you guys think?

I would be entirely pissed off if I donated money to something and it didn’t go to what I was donating for.

How does your sister sleep at night? Serious question as I would be overcome with guilt.
She needs to give it to charity. Perhaps donate it to a charity that represents your DF who has passed.

Just let her read this thread...

She should insist that the family take it.
Even if this young man still lived with his parents without any dependents, they may well have other financial losses because of his death. If they are of working age they might not have been paid during bereavement leave.
Even if they are retired they might find themselves having to pay an oddjob man to do somethings that DS would normally do free.

The last place that money should be is her account. It sounds fishy to me that it went so many places in the first place. Did she really intend it would all go to the family ?

I think it is wrong as well. Why would they not use it for a head stone or similar?

YANBU You could have a quiet word and say “I’m worried about you. If people find out you kept that money you might get vilified on social media. It might be best to make a donation to a charity in his name or pay for a plaque or a tree to be planted. That way if anything comes up in the future you’re covered”
What If the family change their mind and decide they want it back? This has potential disaster written all over it.

Suggest she keeps it in a separate account for now, send the family a note saying she’s holding it safely and make a few suggestions about how it might be spent.

You’re right, it’s best to be straight about these things.

A close friend lost her DH suddenly and was overwhelmed family, friends and neighbours rallied round and the expenses were covered. I think I know where the family were coming from by saying 'oh you keep it' to your sister. They are grateful and relieved - funerals are horribly expensive and massive burden if the funds aren't in place. That being said, they are grieving family - doesn't mean this is the right decision.

Your sister should view the money as safekeeping and NOT hers. I too would not be happy if my hard earned money was lolling around as spends in someone's bank account. Plant some trees, donate seating bench, have a memorial in a year's time or make donation to charity.

This will get out and your sister will not live it down. It will ruin her reputation. I would think less of someone who did this. Worse still it would stop me from donating again - which is a shame as I know how friend my friend needed the money to bury her DH.

Show you sister this thread, show her on the basis that someone from the family/friends of the family will talk and it will get out and you don't want her to suffer the fall out when it does.

Though I don't think she's done anything wrong, I'm clearly in the minority here. And if this thread reflects real life, it seems that she's at risk from others finding out and reacting in the same way that people have here.

For her own sake, I think she's going to have to say to the family that they need to take the money. The donors intended it for them and won't understand their kind gesture to her. The family will be sad, I'm sure, but clearly people outside just can't accept that it's their choice.

She ought to donate it to a charity the family chooses, or put in a savings account for the family for days out or a little holiday to take their mind off it. It’s wrong to keep it, I’d be livid if I donated money and someone else kept it. Better hope others don’t find out.

I think your DSis has been very unwise. Has she considered how the family might react if she starts posting pics of her new sofa? Or trip to Paris? Or upgraded car?

This could turn very nasty for her, which would be such a shame after having the good heart to start the appeal out of love.

This is why I never give to any fundraisers not endorsed by a registered charity.

Your sister was just a go-between, she has no rights to it at all, despite what the family have said. She should give it to whichever charity they are collecting for at the funeral.

If your going to address this with your sister, please do so kindly. She did something thoughtful that made a difference to this family. She's respected their wishes and accepted this gift. She's not done anything as horrendous as some people seem to think.
But the important thing that the family didn't think through (understandably) is the possible effect on your sister's reputation if donors heard about this. So please make that the focus of your conversation, and don't attach blame or judgment on her.

In fact have they even had the funeral yet? Won't people say 'oh, did you manage to raise enough?' and the like. What's she going to say - 'oh yes thanks, I've even got £700 out of it'.

The sister made a Facebook page raising money for her best friend’s family since it was her best friend’s brother who died. She put in an amount which we can only guess she heard from her best friend. Anyone who has seen these on Facebook knows when the amount given is reached so if any of them donated after it was reached, it would be logical to think the family would use it for something else.

We know the family received all of the money donated as they were meant to. They used the money and then gave the rest to OP’s sister who if she hadn’t done this for them, they wouldn’t have had the money in the first place. This isn’t some random person that did this for them but their daughter’s best friend. I highly doubt OP’s sister did this to get money out of them in the end. They know her way better than us.

We don’t know how they used all the money given. We know they used it for the funeral but could have used it for more things. We also have no idea how the deceased died nor if he had a wife and children, or if there were any causes that he cared about, he could have been someone who was indifferent to that sort of thing. Posters are adding things that the OP hasn’t added or said themselves.

The family received all the money and once they did it was up to them how they used it and they decided to use it for its purpose and thanking the person who made it possible for them to have it.

I can understand being upset but then I wouldn’t give money that I would need/miss, wouldn’t have given it once I saw the amount asked for was reached and if I did, I would think it was just for whatever the family chose to do afterwards.

She’s technically not wrong as the family allowed her to keep the money, but it is very icky.
The only reason would keep this money would be to offer it again to the family in a few months time to see if they were ready to perhaps donate to a relevant charity in their loved ones memory or similar.
I couldn’t have it in my account indefinitely and would donate it myself if the family didn’t want to be involved.

What a disgusting thing for your sister to do - keeping money meant for a dead mans funeral, knowing his family are not well off? Absolutely vile.

@shinyredbus the money raised was used for the funeral. OP's sister had not diverted it. There was money left over which the family gave her as a gift.

There is nothing vile about it.

I'd be seriously pissed off If I had been one of the ones who donated

Did she definitely tell the family how much had been raised? Or did they tell her what the funeral cost and so she transferred that amount to them? Do they even know about the other £800 that she's pocketed?

I think it's very dishonourable of her to have kept this money. If she'd told people from the beginning that was what she'd do with any left over, no-one would have donated.

100% agree with saraclara above.

If this gets out she will be destroyed and she doesn't deserve that.

She’s technically not wrong as the family allowed her to keep the money, but it is very icky.

You have to think about how things will appear, though. When companies run big promotional competitions, they usually exclude any employee or their family members from entering. If a million people entered through the normal channel, with a winner chosen at random by a computer, there's just as much chance of the CEO's granddaughter winning fairly as there is for anybody else - but they deliberately exclude this possibility to make sure that nobody can accuse them of not being above board.

People would be similarly horrified if the sister ran her own funeral directors or stonemason company and she had effectively fundraised to enable the bereaved family to put some business her way.

If you look on Justgiving's terms, it specifically says that ALL of the money raised has to be used for the stated purpose. At the very least, it's a breach of their terms.

To be honest, after reading this thread, and seeing how many of you think it's ok to pocket the difference, I don't think I'll be giving to one of these fundraisers again.

Kind of weird for the family to say they only needed £5k and to keep the rest. That is just a bit unusual

It looks like this was fraudulent and she should be lying awake at night about that one. The Facebook guidance on personal fundraisers states that a fundraiser is fraudulent if:
" The funds are being raised for something different than what's in the fundraiser's description." I would say that very much applies to your sister's fundraiser.

I bet not a single one of the donors would have sanctioned this had they known that the best part of £1000 would go into her own pockets. She could literally go out and buy a designer handbag with it. Does that sound ethical or legal to you?

Tbh OP, I think you've been a bit too chilled out about this, hoping that "your facial expression" revealed your disapproval and saying you'll speak to her "when you see her". I know none of this is your fault of course, and I'm sorry it's landed on your doorstep but now that it has, I would be phoning her up to specifically raise your very serious concerns on this. She needs to be spoken to in no uncertain terms before the law catches up with her.

The decent and lawful course of action for her would be to post on the fundraiser page:
now that the bills for the funeral have been settled there is an additional £800 leftover from the final outgoings. The family have asked me to manage this and we will be donating this to XXX charity, a worthy cause, close to the family's heart. Thank you again for your kind donations

...and then make the donation and post a photo of the donation receipt/thank you on the fundraiser page for transparency.

Oh, and even though it's under the threshold, she still should have declared it to HMRC. But she probably can't do that without declaring it to be fraudulent income so...