When we first spotted this young lady turning to GoFundMe to remove a ‘420’ tattoo from her forehead (Google that if you don’t know what it is, grandma), we knew there had to be some hilarious backstory to that God awful thing (the tattoo, we mean). Sure enough, the fundraiser itself was only the beginning.
The GoFundMe page has since been removed, but not before it raised over $1000. No wonder, with a plea like this:
“I want to have a better start out in life and have a second chance at life please help me I was young n dumb when I got that
People call me a druggie every day of my life and being called 420 is not nice and I almost killed my self over it…can’t stand to look at my face anymore. .save a life save me..invest in me and I will show you I can be better with my life”
I’m gonna be blunt here (LOL blunt, get it?!), why not just grow some bangs?
Even someone claiming to be her brother had to chime in not only to offer his opinion on her fundraiser but to warn any would-be donors that his alleged sister isn’t in her right mind. As if the giant, hideous 420 tattoo on her forehead doesn’t clearly disclaim that already.
West’s plea quickly went viral, flying around the internet with nearly 100,000 shares and 2,000 comments. She was even offered the opportunity to appear on the show The Doctors to have her tattoo removal broadcast on television.
Before we get to the rest of the story, it’s worth noting how we believe West ended up with the tattoo in the first place. Apparently, a now-defunct smoke shop called the 420 Emporium in Fulton, NY was handing these bad boys out a few years back, as evidenced by their Facebook page and this, um, specimen:
The 420 Emporium empire was sadly brought to an end when the feds busted them for selling bath salts, among other questionable substances. You know, I’m truly shocked bath salts would factor in to this story somehow, let me tell you.
Anyhoo, back to Miss West.
The Daily Haze has accused West of using her newfound GoFundMe fame to profit off her tattoo removal, and provides several screenshots to prove it:
Like many, upon first seeing her campaign, we had our doubts if West could be trusted to use the money for what she was saying it was going to go towards. Sure enough, just 4 days into her campaign, it appears West is a fraud. Which is not surprising when you saw her second Facebook account. At the time of our original article, West had 3 Facebook accounts, 2 of which have now been deleted and the third is set to private.
The first hint of this was when 2 separate people offered to pay for the tattoo removal by phone with their credit card. They offered to pay the person removing the tattoo directly. This way West would never get to touch the money and there would be no chance of error. She gladly took the offer, but left the Go Fund Me up for people to donate to. This leads to the question, if the tattoo removal is paid for, why is she still asking for donations?
WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? I mean if you can’t trust someone with a 420 tattoo on their forehead, who can you trust?!
In a final update to her GoFundMe page, West wrote:
“hi an update this is not a fraud gofund me I did make a go fund me along time but did not collect any of the funds.. and I have a appointment to remove my tattoo on feb 8th in Syracuse ny at this plase http://aesyracuse.com/ at morning my sister in law will be taking me so I am not a fraud I am really wanting to get this gone and people are calling places and pretandoing to be me and made a fake profile on facebook and I am in contact with a cyber bully laywer just letting everyone know the people that have acused me of things will be standing infront a judge because im pressing charges n im getting imposter charges as will thanks my sessions run $300-$350 a session I will need 2-3 of them depends how the 1st one goes and I need gas money funds to get there..so thank you have a good day everyone if u really need to contact me I don’t do any emails what so ever only from important people ..so thank you to whom ever it may concern and yes I have typo misspell arras..thank you Tabitha west…”
It’s unclear when exactly the page was pulled and why, though we have a pretty good guess.
As for the tattoo removal, it appears to be in progress if we can believe Facebook. Can we believe Facebook? Oh who the hell knows. I don’t even know what the hell is going on anymore.
And there you have it, folks. Might I suggest a new tagline to the GoFundMe marketing department: GoFundMe.com, monetizing bad decisions since 2010! Y’all can have that one for free, you’re welcome.