SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
More than $400,000 in GoFundMe donations refunded in alleged homeless vet scam
Donations have been returned to everyone who contributed to a viral crowdfunding campaign that authorities say was based on a lie, a GoFundMe spokesman said Tuesday.
Prosecutors announced charges in November against three people who allegedly concocted a feel-good story of kindness to attract donations in October 2017. People donated more than $400,000 to the cause.
GoFundMe spokesman Bobby Whithorne said Tuesday that "all donors who contributed to this GoFundMe campaign have been fully refunded" and that the organization was cooperating fully with law enforcement. Whithorne said cases of misuse "make up less than one-tenth of 1 percent" of GoFundMe campaigns.
In November, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey charged Katelyn McClure and Mark D'Amico, both of Florence, New Jersey, with theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft in connection with the viral story. The man described by the couple as a homeless veteran and good Samaritan, 35-year-old Johnny Bobbitt Jr., was charged with the same crimes. The story that prompted the donations: Bobbitt supposedly gave McClure his last $20 when her car ran out of gas. About 14,000 people donated to a campaign that promised to help Bobbitt start a new life, but authorities say the money was spent on luxury items and casino trips.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @03:26AM (1 child)
About 10 years ago, I started seeing a few stickers on cars saying something like "I bought carbon offsets for this car", or something like that. My first thought was how I could capitalize on this virtue signalling, like the people printing those stickers were doing. For every $1000 collected, plant a bush? Never followed through with it though, and that kind of greenwashing scam evaporated pretty quickly.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 27 2018, @04:24AM
Those kinds of scams are good from fleecing the good Goys of San Francisco, Boston, and New York. Totally righteous people with lots of money and little brain who will chuck $1000 at you without even thinking twice.
There are a lot of Jews in those places, of course, but Jews don't fall for scams. They might be cheap, but when they're not haggling they pay debt religiously and are more than happy to donate when its involved with Israel or migration to countries other than Israel.