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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: 2) by Whoever on Thursday December 27 2018, @03:57AM (1 child)
You seem to have accepted that they cooked up the whole plot, when you suggested a prearranged divvy-up of the funds:
You also ignore the fact that the couple spent money that was donated for the benefit of the "homeless man" on cars, vacations and gambling.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Thursday December 27 2018, @03:26PM
Phrases like "I suppose it is possible" and "seems a stretch" are pretty good indicators I doubt that they cooked up a plot from the get go. My point was that if I am wrong and they really did plot the whole thing out and really did expect a massive flood of money, they didn't handle the situation well at all. Their first mistake was to engage in a crime where one of the parties is an addict and their second was to cheat him out of his share. I'm obviously sidestepping all the moral issues related to fraud and just looking at the business end here.
But as I strongly implied in the sentence you misunderstood, I find it very hard to believe they ginned up such a plot intentionally. Rather, I suspect what happened is that they new the homeless guy in some way, liked him, and tried to figure out how to help him. They expected to see hundreds of dollars in donations, maybe a couple thousand, but when real money started pouring in, the couple got greedy and stupid.