Go fund me

[OohShakiraShakira]

Can someone just set up a GoFundMe to raise money for one thing, then quietly shut it down and keep the money without using it for the intended purpose?

Someone I know started a page recently. I'll change the details but keep the bare bones of this situation the same. So, say this man named Jeremy starts a GoFundMe to raise money for his dog to have an operation. Jeremy has a reasonable amount of followers online, lots of whom donate small amounts like £5 or £10, the biggest single donation being £50.

He regularly updates, metaphorically shaking his bucket for more coins. Meanwhile, the insurance tells Jeremy that his pet plan will in fact cover the entire cost of the surgery, Jeremy will have to pay upfront but will be able to be reimbursed after. Jeremy uses the GoFundMe pot, of circa £2,300 to pay for the operation and updates the page saying so. He thanks everyone and shuts the page down. Jeremy is then reimbursed the full amount by his insurance company and keeps that money for himself.

Is that acceptable or fair? Are there any rules or laws against this? Is it simply tough luck to those who donated in good faith?

Interested to know your thoughts on this and other GoFundMe fundraisers. Should it be better regulated or is the onus on the individual to accept they might be being deceived?

Please let's not derail the thread talking about pet insurance, I've changed the scenario to a comparable one for anonymity. No actual dogs came to harm.

If people give their money, I suppose they just have to deal with that don’t they?

Unfortunately I think there's plenty of examples of this sort of thing. And most of the time people have given the money and so that's that. Morally he should give the money back or donate to charity.
It's a shame because maybe long term people will stop contributing to the deserving people.

As far as I'm aware you can set up a go fund me for anything ?
I could set up one to help fund a round the world cruise ,if somebody is daft enough to contribute more fool them.

I very rarely donate to gofundme unless I know the person personally. There are far too many unscrupulous people using them. Most vets will take insurance information from pet owners and send the relevant documents to them to claim. If they want money up front, it's probably because of past non payment. Yes there are some money grabbing vets around that demand money immediately regardless, but if you get the money back from insurance, then that should be returned to those who donated.

It would surely be obtaining property by deception or some other sort of fraud, and therefore illegal. Although proving it or getting the police to take any other action is a different matter. People have been jailed for faking cancer and getting donations.

I would report it to Go Fund Me.

I'll probably be called a busy body on here or eye rolled at but if these scammers aren't held accountable then Go Fund Me will eventually become nothing but scammers and potentially even be shut down.

If somebody stole that money from another source, everyone would be fully behind them being held to account.

Yes, the person receiving the money can do what they like. A lady posted on our local Facebook group that she was setting up a Go Fund for donations for her late father’s funeral. A lot of people gave thinking her father didn’t leave any money for this, but he did leave enough for a decent funeral, but she booked a horse and carriage.

Unfortunately the onus is on the people making donations to understand and accept that there is no regulation and the money they’re donating can and most likely will be used for something that was not the intended purpose.

There have been some really high profile Go Fund Me’s where it’s been obvious pretty much from the get go that it’s a money making racket and both the authorities (police) and Go Fund Me have been totally uninterested in investigating the misuse of funds.

I guess, in your example, Jeremy did what he said he was going to do. Ie. Pay for the operation with the money raised. He just didn’t complete the story. Ie. The insurance company will reimburse him.

Maybe he didn’t know that he will be reimbursed when he set the fund up (some can take weeks to respond to claim), and maybe he didn’t genuinely have the money to pay for it upfront.

However, I get where you’re coming from. He was being economical with the truth.

Yes, his initial intention was honest, he genuinely thought he'd have to pay himself. Once he learned he'd be reimbursed, he shut down the GoFundMe but didn't tell anyone though.

He has now set up another GoFundMe for something else totally unrelated to the earlier fundraiser (along the lines of needing help to buy an upgraded version of something he uses for work).

I'll admit my first thought was that his first fundraiser was initially set up with honest intentions, but now he's being opportunistic.