Not another Go fund me!

[Bignanna]

Is anyone else fed up with people begging for money on Go Fund Me, to bring a family member home from abroad, because they are seriously ill in a far away country?
He didnt have travel insurance as he thought he wouldn’t need it, being young and fit! There’s another article in the Daily Mail about him and the family are wringing their hands and begging for help. Whist I sympathise with anyone being seriously ill, this was so easy to avoid, and it keeps happening. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth that it seems ok to beg others to compensate for other’s stupidity.

I know someone who begged for money for a vet bill for his cat. I also know he has 200k stashed away. Keeps that bit quiet on Facebook.

I told my friends if I ever die or something terrible happens to me or my kids, I will haunt them if they set up a bloody go fund me page. I'm a lone parent but I've made sure my kids will be ok if anything happens to me with life insurance. Locally last year a young boy was run over and died on his way to school, before 3pm there was a go fund me set up. I would be mortified and fuming if my friends did that before I'd had chance to process what had happened!

We have always booked insurance at the time of booking any holiday - and 15 years ago thank goodness we did as DH got septicemia just weeks before we were due to go away. There was no way he would be fit enough to travel - there no questions when it came to the insurance paying out. Best money we ever spent!!

Omg me too!!
hate those begging ones for a fancy funeral-have one you can afford!

Totally agree

Is this the lad in Cambodia whose hospital care is costing £8000 per day or something mad? Obviously I hope he’s ok and his parents don’t have to sell their house to get him home, but I generally have little sympathy for those who don’t get even basic insurance, it’s just plain stupid.

Not necessarily, I believe home adaptations further to an OT assessment are now means tested.

Not excusing any go fund mes but car insurance/ injury claims can take months even years for money to appear for the claimant

It almost sounds like the broken leg was worth it!

I have some sympathy for people who book travel insurance but get caught out by the small print, e.g. not updating the insurance company if they're waiting for blood test results by the time they travel. That's the kind of mistake that's easy to make but can have enormous consequences if something goes wrong. People who just don't take out any/adequate cover have no excuse to come begging if their gamble doesn't pay off though.

I'm happy to contribute to home adaptations. If there was a car crash or other insured accident the victim will probably get a very decent payout, but likely not for ages. SS and the NHS aren't exactly renowned for their generosity either in the case of uninsured injuries. I don't know if the mountain rescue volunteer who suffered life-changing injuries rescuing the idiotic campers in the middle of lockdown would have had his house adaptations and care covered by insurance, but he deserved every penny raised by his friend's GoFundMe page and more. Patterdale mountain rescuer injured in fall dies

Definitely agree

Used to work in travel insurance about 10 years ago
I must admit that I’d always booked a last min cheapy policy prior to that and not even thought about it though I would have been covered for something at least even if the excess was probably £500 or something
It was eye opening to say the least and now we get a decent annual policy so we’re covered for UK breaks too
The number of claims I had to decline because they went skiing without the ski add on or did dangerous activities without the sports cover etc was baffling
Though it gave me absolutely no joy to decline claims for people even if they were idiots..

My husband had a heart attack in Belgium. Insurance plus their Health care system and our EHIC card (at the time) meant we paid nothing.

I also hate these, but on the flip side of this (and probably a very rare case)

I got one of those texts of x has been injured in an accident, if you are able to spare any money please can you send it to xxxx

And I thought what complete bollocks, turns out X had been injured in an accident and the insurance was refusing to pay because they were claiming he was cliff diving/climbing when he was just walking.

They did get the money to pay for the hospital bills using gofund and the insurance company did eventually pay up as well.

Just for the record, the money went back into their church, which is what they said would happen.

It’s infuriating. I’m no longer surprised at the stupidity of people

I believe insurance should be mandatory if leaving the country. Just like - valid passport required, insurance required.

I used to work for one of the emergency companies that sort stuff out when you fall ill.

I would never ever travel without insurance - the way the costs rack up can be frightening.

Even something like an ear infection if it stops you flying due date that's £££ for new flight, extended hotel etc.

SIL got caught out with a flight cancellation and no insurance. She still had no travel insurance- it’s infuriating to DH and I because it’s not just her it’s the 3 kids who aren’t covered if they were sick and we suspect she’d come begging us for the cash which would be horrible. Imagine being in the position of refusing to help pay for your nephews medical treatment in America but equally that’s your life savings of £20k?

Agree it should be mandatory.

Yep really annoying.

And the ones for dog operations when people didn't get insurance. I pay £50pm for my dog to be insured. If you didn't want to pay that don't get a dog, or pay for their life saving operation on a credit card. Why should I pay for my dog and yours?

I recently saw one of someone asking people to pay for their childs funeral, however several months later they managed to pay for a wedding for themselves. I'm not being heartless or unsympathetic, but I would never expect people to contribute money for me!

A child's funeral is one of the few I would have sympathy with - no one expects to have to pay for their child's funeral.

The wedding might already have been paid for, before the funeral, if it was only a few months later and surely no one would grudge someone who'd lost a child the happiness of a wedding.

Did anyone see the 24 hours in police custody, where a man got sent to prison for chasing two lads that stole a motorcycle from him? They crashed and got injured. He was self-employed with a pregnant girlfriend. A go fund me was set up. One of the few where I thought 'good for them'. Poor couple, what an absolute nightmare situation. Two lads went on to commit more burglaries but not still not charged or punished.

You have all just reminded me to sort the travel insurance. Ours is normally rolling and was getting too expensive. I needed to shop around.

Completely agree. And the amount of gofundme's for funerals is crazy. I am not talking about tragic deaths like one recently where 3 members of the one family were killed in a car crash including 2 children, horrific 😢 💔
I'm talking about a normal expected death type thing. We had a case locally recently where a fundraiser was held after a man died. It was a sudden death and the money was to help the wife and children, fine. About 40K was raised. LITERALLY the next week a gofundme was set up for the funeral costs....like can that not come out of the 40k?? Also a colleague knows the family and said that the life insurance paid off the mortgage etc it's a horrible situation to be in but some people or people around them try to capitalise on a tragedy 😡

It’s not expensive to get basic travel insurance which would cover this sort of thing. There’s no chance I’d donate to this sort of thing.

And don't read the small print either.

A friend who hates reading small print and filling in forms went on a working holiday to Australia.

I was looking at the insurance options and I was shocked at how many did not cover manual work or agricultural work, you know the kind of work lots of people do on working holidays.

The irony was that the policy he went with covered manual work and lots of other things but dental was only partially covered.

So day one in Sidney, he bought a snickers bar, took a bite and cracked a tooth.

Most funeral directors do children's funerals for free.