Charity SCAM?

[DeeConnors]

There has been a story in the news about a couple (Lee Johnston & Katie) holidaying in New York and going into premature birth, and facing a £130,000 hospital bill. There is a charity page set up to get donations to help with their medical bills.
Now it is revealed that the couple's travel/medical insurance is paying for the full medical treatment and emergency incidentals such as accomodation, food, emergency clothing, etc.
It also transpires the couple flew out First Class, are staying at the 5-star Hilton Hotel, and were planning a shopping spreee for designer clothes on 5th Avenue, but are now claiming they are broke with no money for clean underwear or food.
On Lee's facebook page, he also has a collection of expensive motorcycles & flash cars with personalised number plates, yet is claiming he needs money to pay his rent.

I was just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this fraudulent use of charity?

Thread deleted

Message from MNHQ: We're afraid we felt this thread was becoming a bit personal and isn't really in the spirit of the site so we've deleted it

That was the deletion message from the continued thread - which is, I think, exactly the same as the deletion message from the first thread.

MN seem to be scared of getting sued, especially when it's clear that the objects of people's concerns have suddenly come into a large sum of money and could afford to take action.

MN bottled it because there were links to the AIBU on the FB page and it reflected badly on MN. There were a very few spiteful ad hominem comments about the parents.

The page is raising funds for costs that are covered by insurance on the pretence that any "excess" donations will go to Ronald McDonald house charity. The money is supposedly to pay for nappies and their rent back home.

It could be thought to be naive, but the fact that they have £10k in the bank and counting, the lead fundraiser has been misleading about the status of the insurance claim, people get shouted down, deleted and banned for asking basic questions about accountability and - get this - the lead fundraiser is an insurance broker (so can hardly plead ignorance) suggest that this whole thing is somewhere between greedy/unethical and downright fraudulent.

MN not scared of getting sued in this case, I suspect. £10 wouldn't touch the sides of a defamation claim.

Yup, I'm wondering if MNHQ pulled the threads because they think (know) this is going to be played out further in the media and don't want those few nasty posts reproduced alongside pics of the dad's car & bike collection in the MailOnline article. Just guessing but I noticed the commentators under the DM article were really hating the unfortunate parents, I'd be surprised if they passed up the chance to generate more clicks from all that hate.

I think the thread was deleted as it was becoming personal, slagging of the couples appearance and whatnot

off not of

I get the feeling that the likes of the daily mail think all this too but are waiting for a few days to expose it all.
I feel for the couple. They didn't ask to have a prem baby and they didn't ask for their friend to start raising money for them.