To think that this is ok.. gofundme for a wealthy family

[yhegadian]

My friends and I had lunch yesterday. We starting chatting about a family we know and live near. Seemingly wealthy, enjoy the trappings of wealth, one of best addresses in London. Summer house, private education for kids etc.
One of the kids has an opportunity to get a preventative course of medicine for the recurrence of a life limiting disease that can be effective but is not guaranteed. A trial.
It will cost £100's K.
I think. Gofundme is perfectly acceptable in view of their child's potential opportunity . Others in the group were shocked that they would consider this due to their apparent wealth, family wealth, salubrious homes , cars etc and felt other causes were more deserving considering their present financial situation will remain ie some felt they could take their other children from private school, trade down regarding their home, sell their summer home , downgrade cars. They won't be using capital from any of the above to fund treatment.
AIBU?

I'm sorry for their trouble but I think it's cheeky,under the circumstances.

Not quite the same - had a go fund me to pay for a place at uni - foundation course so no student loan available apparently . They’d put four kids through private education; he was a stockbroker; had two homes . They’d since divorced but I just thought - I think you’ve had loads of advantages in life already so Go and get a job and save the salary for a year and stop asking for money.

Disgusting

Sadly crowd funding seems to be the norm. I know somebody who tried to raise thousands for their cat

Rich people are rich for a reason

Sounds like something Katie Price would do.

I suppose it is a matter of finding out when the money comes in - or doesn't!

I expect they have rich friends. They will probably contribute.

I think if I were them I would give it a try. Selling up, selling cars, downsizing, all that... takes a long time. Their child needs help now.

Plus who is to say they are not selling a lot of their assets anyway?

No of course it’s not ok! Check your moral
compass. Asking people who are very likely to be less well off than themselves to fund something that they could easily afford for their own child? The only way that wouldn’t be immoral is if the gofundme page clearly stated that they have a summer home they could sell, top of the range cars, a fancy London pad, private education for all their children etc, and then beneath that the begging part. That way any potential funders wouldn’t be deceived into putting their own cash into something the family could afford themselves if they actually really wanted it for their child.

Also, medical trials don’t cost money in the uk so presumably this is in the states or similar. Does the gofundme in theory happen to also cover the whole family to travel there and maybe go on a nice holiday while there as well?

We don't know their situation. It's entirely possible that everything is mortgaged to the hilt and selling up wouldn't yield anything in the short term.

I agree the optics are bad.

I mean it depends how wealthy. Are we talking a banker on say £200,000 who may appear wealthy but wouldn't have hundreds of thousands lying around for treatment or are we talking Russian Oligarch levels?! The former I think is reasonable, it's still a hell of an amount of mo eh to find.

Thats in really poor taste tbh and I’d think a lot less off them. It wouldn’t even occur to me and I’m not wealthy, I’d be re-mortgaging the house etc. people with a lot less will donate to people who can probably take care of themselves. It’s downright unethical.

I'm sorry for your situation, but we have every right to judge people who ask us for money. Why should those who have so much keep their 'hard earned belongings' but be funded by the hard earned money of those who have so much less? A second home is definitely worth at least a £100K. They're not going to go without. You're talking about going broke and selling things off, sympathies if it's the basics of life like the family home and an ordinary car. Not second houses and private education. Where do we draw the line. Multimillionaire? HNWI? UHNWI?

Also not sure what 'focusing on the child' means , it's the parents that should be doing that. And putting them above 'assets'.

You talk about potential funders making up their own minds, but many don't know the full story- and feel cheated when they find out. Fair enough if these people disclosed their full financial situation when asking but I bet they don't. It results in other, actually needy people not getting any donations because people are fed up of being taken for mugs.

I used to try and chuck in at least a fiver for these things but no more after so many similar stories. Only for people that I know directly. If someone has enough wealthy friends that want to donate, fine with me, but don't go around asking ordinary people who have their own challenges.

The former is still unethical, Christ we're on a combined income of £60k but if I had spare property and expensive extras like private education that would be the first thing to go to fund my child's treatment before I went begging to get a truckload of pensioners barely on £12k a year donating! (and trust me it's always those who have the least that give their last penny if they think someone is worse off)

I can't even imagine having that sort of income and assets and going begging, because you're not begging for the treatment if that's the case, you're begging so you can continue sending your kids to private school and to keep the summer house.

Outrageous suggestion, I can’t believe it would even enter anyone’s head to think this would be ok. They should dig into their own pockets.

If they have more than the property that is their home and many holidays then they should liquidate assets and go without holidays for a few years to fund it before asking others

Yes it’s weird, gofundme should be last resort, not the first option! The situation sounds v sad but they sound like they can afford to fund the therapy themselves

I just knew this would be a fake post where the op wouldn’t return. Boring.

Gah, taking advantage of other peoples’ good nature. How horrid.

Reminds me of a colleague’s wife who circulated a ‘go fund me’ for her dog’s operations, claiming it was so expensive they couldn’t afford it.
I almost fell for it, but didn’t get around to doing it. I found out in the meantime they had purchased a second horse and a horse box. In addition to the regular riding lessons for DC.

Agree with @ginasevern

Look at Alyssa Milanos go fund me for sons baseball.
I don't think thats the same thing though.

All the team are raising money by doing car washes, movie nights, fund raisers etc. Surely its good experience for them to work together to raise the money, rather than having Alyssa swoop in and pay for it all? She's already paid for the whole teams kit and helped in other ways.

I also think that's different - doesn't really tug at the heartstrings and create a sense of urgency/desperate need the way a sick child does. Presumably many of Alyssa's donors were people from the community and alumni as it was for an entire team. Not one child. Also, she may just have created the GFM on the team's behalf.

With the amount of skydiving/mission trips/whatever about these days I doubt that unrelated people can be bothered to donate to that. Even at work there's always someone fundraising for something organised and my reply is always the same... 'my charity budget has been fully allocated'.

I know someone whose child had a rare condition who managed to raise $250k for surgery. Husband was a banker. They’d made c£700k profit when they sold their house in London to move overseas. I was repeatedly asked to donate. With all of that, and Mum’s expensive designer bag collection and the family’s five star holidays, I didn’t feel inclined to. However, many people did. It did not sit right with me. We have lost touch as friends as I felt extremely uncomfortable about it all.

Well, if the cost of care is hundreds of thousands of pounds, they might have to sell up virtually everything.

If potential contributors are unaware of their apparent wealth, then I think it is unethical to use Gofundme because it seems almost like deliberate deception. If contributors are made aware, it is up to them if they wish to contribute.

As someone else said, surely it is free to take part in a trial?

I suppose you don't know the situation, they may be mortgaged to the max, the summerhouse might be producing rental income etc. they may be finding half the money to start with. Hearsay isn't always accurate