GoFundMe is quite proud of itself for this one, as it should be if we had faith that every person on the internet could be trusted to start a fundraiser and distribute funds raised as promised. Unfortunately, we all know better.
ANYHOO, no one is accusing anyone of anything, we’re just noticing the language in this press release from GoFundMe:
On April 16, 2016, Ecuador was devastated by a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake that left hundreds dead and thousands injured. Within hours of the news, people all over the world created GoFundMe campaigns to raise funds for the victims. Today, we’re proud to announce that the GoFundMe community has collectively raised over $1,000,000 to support the victims and the families impacted by the earthquake.
The GoFundMe community has a history of coming together when natural disasters strike. $7 million was raised on GoFundMe in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquakes. Campaign organizers raised $2.5 million for the 2015 California wildfires, and over $1.1 million for the storms in the Carolinas this past year.
“Once again, the GoFundMe community has come together to help those in need. Hundreds of individuals started GoFundMe campaigns to help the victims of this devastating earthquake, and the support immediately poured in, raising over $1 million,” said GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon. “We hope this money will help Ecuador recover and rebuild from this tragic event, and we encourage the GoFundMe community to continue to support the victims and their loved ones during this difficult time.”
Maybe it’s because I’m a writer but to me, words matter. You’ll notice one word in particular repeats itself in this press release: raised. Not distributed. Raised. If I wanted to be a jerk about it, I could head over to our handy GoFundMe Fraud Tracker and add up the countless tens or even hundreds of thousands raised for kids with cancer, victims of crime, sick pets etc — all of which turned out to be total lies. Some of which, in fact, remains in a sort of fraud abyss somewhere between the perpetrator pulling it from their GoFundMe account and the authorities assigning restitution. So yeah, plenty was raised there too, so what?
I truly want to believe the majority of people who fired up GoFundMe pages for the victims of the Ecuador earthquake mean well. I also want to believe that, like Santa Claus, it’s possible to address a letter to Ecuador in a totally generic fashion, like “Dear Ecuador, here is some money hope you get well soon.” Unfortunately, I stopped believing in Santa a long time ago.
One fundraiser — which asked for donations of $250 per person and raised $34,775 — states they will personally travel to Ecuador, where the wife of the campaign owner is from, and that funds “will go to the children who have lost their homes and familys and people who have been disabled by this horrible tragedy.” Okay. Seems pretty legit.
Another — which raised $2,635 — reads more like a news story than an actual plan for the funds.
On it’s special Ecuador Earthquake Relief page, GoFundMe boasts:
$1,322,621 have been raised by 373 campaigns from 16,244 donors for Ecuador Earthquake Relief.
Now, if you’re a scammer looking for an easy rip off unlikely to be detected, where are you going to go? Cruising Google Images for pictures of sick kids, or buried deep in the middle of over 300 campaigns for a foreign country a whole continent away?
In a perfect world, the kindness of so many strangers would be overwhelmingly fantastic. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. In this world, anyone can fire up a GoFundMe page for any purported purpose and pretty much as soon as the money is withdrawn, it’s gone forever.
As always, donor beware.
