Go fund me…….has it gone too far?

I wouldn't give to gofundme, after seeing how a family spent it, smoking, boozing, new car, expensive holiday etc etc. I give to Salvation Army at Christmas, that's it.

I have never and will never contribute to a GFM. I make regular donations via direct debit to charities of my choice, both nationwide and local, and to others on an ad hoc basis and I think that's enough.

I think the idea comes from America where the welfare system is not so good and everything has to be fundraised for. But you have no way of knowing if they are legitimate. Of course our own welfare systems are now breaking down and more and more families have no safety net.Its best to help through properly managed charities who have safeguards in place.

chocolate, this is an ever increasing scam.

I only know of one person, through a friend, who has done GFM. She was a rogue tenant, refusing to pay rent (eventually found out she did this with previous landlords), held riotous parties upsetting the peaceful neighbourhood - to name but two offences. Poor landlord was working through the eviction process - time consuming and expensive. House got burned to the ground - insurance and fire service both concluded it was the tenant from hells fault. They claimed they lost all their possessions and wanted landlord to pay for it all as they had no renters insurance.
The good news, landlord got rid of tenant, neighbours got peace again.
Bad news - watching local newspaper reporting the case from her perspective and detailing her GFM link - and people paid into it! Extraordinary - in every way this ghastly person was shamelessly living off the backs of others.
My view - donate to registered charities you trust.

Another one which seems to be increasing in popularity is the invitation to donate to a named charity on somebody’s birthday.
Nothing to object to, if you would have given that person a present anyway and sometimes a timely reminder that there are many deserving charities whom we rarely hear of.
I do tend to feel a little bit bad if I ignore that request however, but still think I reserve the right to donate at my own choosing - which I do anyway through a monthly d/d Charities Aid Foundation

I'm sure that it's rare, but in my home town a woman asked for funding for treatment to prolong her life,as she was a terminally ill mum- cue pictures of her in a hospital bed looking poorly -which was a complete scam. Lots of fundraising locally, events and individual donations helped to fund a very pleasant lifestyle. She came unstuck when her doctor saw the posts. She is serving time for this!

I don’t give to GFM there are too many scam ones.

Going back a few years I had a wedding/catering business. There was a big push in local media for a young girl (18) who had cancer and wanted to do things on her bucket list before dying. One was get married, fancy hotel for the night, designer handbag and purse, luxury car ride. All the usual stuff that you would expect on a list. We offered to cater the evening event but were told by the mum that it was already covered and she thanked me. 3 years later I got a message out of the blue that the daughter would like to take me up on my offer of catering her birthday event and it would be for 240 and then listed everything that they wanted. It would have cost about £5k. I politely declined to help as we had a booking that evening. The daughter was fully recovered from the cancer and outlook was more than hopeful for the future. This is what put me off donating anything. I’m not saying that I would only help if she was dying, what I’m saying is that it was exaggerated in the first place and people rallied donating services and money that must have been over £40k but to ask for a free party after 3 years, now that was cheeky.

I can understand people being unable to afford funerals if a death is unexpected

If you cannot afford or refuse to pay for a funeral the local authority will do it. Its called a "Public Health" funeral.

Are you talking about "crowd funding" here? If so, it is built on the premise that those who receive money that way, will when able contribute to others' projects.

I can see the fallacy of this, for who is to say they will "remember" to give when they are more able to do so. If ever!

To me these things are a form of charity and as far as charities go if I disapprove of the project, the way the charity is run, or the way they ask for money, then I keep my purse shut.

There are after all plenty of well run charities that I do want to support.

No-one should feel forced to contribute to any charity or accede to any other demand for money.

My poor dear BiL was killed in my car in 1988 aged just 22. He misread his insurance we were away and he had permission to use my car. He was not insured.hed died at wheel of mystery condition.
He was coming back to our house after working for Littlewoods warehouse as student . Littlewoods gave his mum a good insurance payout to help with funeral.
I got nothing for my car that was written off and I was still paying the loan off 2 years after. I would NEVER have begged for money from strangers. Life is cruel but that's just what it is. Everyone thinks world owes them a living...and endless funds too nowadays!

kircubbin2000

Nicola Bulleys friend Emma set one up last week for £100,000.It caused outrage and was qiickly taken down.

Why? I don't get these slot of the time?. Yeas it's an absolute heartbreaking situation. But why the fund especially as she is still "missing" ? I give what I want to whom I want when I want and don't get swayed by heartstrings plucking on TV etc. I have pet charities and stick to that otherwise things would get a bit ridiculous!

Nicola Bulleys friend Emma set one up last week for £100,000.It caused outrage and was qiickly taken down.

I don't know how long ago that was however in the last few years or so you get £1500 towards it. The rest you have to find yourself or have a council funeral which is free.

A council funeral is the person is taken straight to the crematorium. The ashes are given back to the family if they want them. There is no service and burial isn't an option.

We have funeral plans so ours are paid for. My husband passed unexpectedly 5 years ago so it was a massive relief we had/ve them

I would only give to those I know. Not those I don't. We did have a GFM page for those who couldn't make his service to give to the chosen charity.

We had the money paid directly to the charity so everything was transparent

1summer

It really annoys me when people set up Go find me pages for people who go on holiday and don’t take out insurance and have had an accident or become ill.
Recently in our local paper a young girl had gone to Thailand on holiday got drunk and fell off her balcony. The Thai government wouldn’t let her leave the country until a very large hospital bill was settled. At first she seemed to think it was the UKs responsibility to pay and bring her home.
Her family set up a go fund me page and the money must have been raised as she was recently in the paper talking about her holiday from hell. I hope she has learnt a lesson.

She’s probably learnt that ‘someone else will pay’ 😡

Dickens

JaneJudge

I can understand people being unable to afford funerals if a death is unexpected.

If people are very hard up and in receipt of benefits - there is government help available for the cost involved in funerals.

I wish dying was not so expensive...

I know someone who’s family member died, as they were living on benefits the whole cost was met by government/council funds.
They don’t leave anyone unburied, money or not.

Our local 'Next Door' had a GFM from a lady who had 'bonded deeply'' with her dog (piccie) supplied and wanted £4.5K to pay for vet bills.

No chance!!! Even if the dog exists. And next time make sure the photo isn't a stock photo.

And can I salute Irish Dancing who resisted the plea to fund super luxury honeymoon trips for relatives. We succumbed and felt fools afterwards. Donating to a charity makes much more sense.

And who writes those grisly poems that accompany the requests for dosh? I once found a poetic riposte on line but can't now track it down. I think ended with 'why not get knotted...' but I might be wrong.

I don't think there needs to be tighter regulations. No-one is forced to donate to a GFM. If you donate presumably it's with no strings attached. My attitude to giving money on GFM or giving stuff away on FB etc is that it's entirely up to the recipient what they do with it. If I give money to a registered charity that's different and I expect them to use it as per their legal obligations. An area that does need tightening up is people doing their own raffles, as that is often illegal.

It really annoys me when people set up Go find me pages for people who go on holiday and don’t take out insurance and have had an accident or become ill.
Recently in our local paper a young girl had gone to Thailand on holiday got drunk and fell off her balcony. The Thai government wouldn’t let her leave the country until a very large hospital bill was settled. At first she seemed to think it was the UKs responsibility to pay and bring her home.
Her family set up a go fund me page and the money must have been raised as she was recently in the paper talking about her holiday from hell. I hope she has learnt a lesson.

I've seen lots of 'Go Fund Me' type links on social media over the past few days claiming to be for the Turkey/Syria earthquake funds, but I'm always sceptical as to whether they money from these ever reaches the right places. A few years back, one of the Facebook pages I'm on had an appeal to raise funds for a little boy who was facing a major heart operation. Almost £20,000 was raised for the hospital he was attending, but questions were later raised as to how much, if any, of that actually went to the hospital. I think that put a lot of people off donating.

The only one I have given to was for the funeral of a relative. She was a middle-aged woman who died suddenly and not everyone has £4000 or £5000 available to meet an unexpected cost like that.

I wouldn’t be guilt tripped into any giving, charitable or otherwise. We give a lot of our income to charity, including natural disasters. We have not given to nieces who asked for a contribution towards their honeymoon! We gave to a charity they both support and told them so.

is that for a sole burial or cremation though?

JaneJudge

I can understand people being unable to afford funerals if a death is unexpected.

If people are very hard up and in receipt of benefits - there is government help available for the cost involved in funerals.

I wish dying was not so expensive...

I can understand people being unable to afford funerals if a death is unexpected.