The unfolding saga of a South Jersey couple who raised $400K for a homeless veteran has made national headlines. In recent weeks, the couple has been under scrutiny, facing accusations from the veteran that he did not receive the money. Money-raising sites like GoFundMe and Kickstarter became popular earlier this decade. Sometimes, fund-raising campaigns on those sites have been exposed as scams with the perpetrators arrested and found guilty of fraud. In case you've missed the incident that has erupted over the past few days, here's the situation that has put crowdfunding into the public eye. Last Thanksgiving, Burlington County couple Katelyn McClure and Mark D'Amico launched the online fundraiser for Johnny Bobbitt, a homeless veteran, after he gave his last $20 to McClure when she ran out of gas on I-95 in Philadelphia last year. Boosted by the the holiday season, $400,000 in donations poured in to the campaign.
But Bobbitt now says he didn't get all of the money. The couple claimed they did not give the full amount to Bobbitt immediately because he struggled with drug addiction and soho1012.ooi.kr they feared he would blow it all irresponsibly. Now Bobbitt is suing McClure and D'Amico, and GoFundMe has promised to make sure he is made whole. The stakes increased on Thursday morning, when the couple's home in Florence Township was raided by police. Adrienne Gonzalez, who tracks GoFundMe campaigns on the watchdog website GoFraudMe, said that the Bobbitt situation in South Jersey is unprecedented in terms of how much money was involved. Gonzalez said in an email. Over the years, there have been other noteworthy scams involving the use of GoFundMe. Here are few examples. Victoria Morrison of Carson City, Nevada, faked her son Blake's terminal illness and launched a GoFundMe campaign meant to raise money for the boy's bucket list. Morrison raised $2,000 in the campaign, which lasted over a month.
Morrison was arrested in April 2017 and charged with obtaining money by false pretenses, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Morrison pled guilty in May. According to KTVN, she faces a minimum of five years and up to 12 and a half years in prison. When Barry Sutton, a civilian contractor and former police officer, was killed by a car bomb in Afghanistan, the town of Rome, Georgia went into mourning. A GoFundMe campaign quickly popped up in Sutton's honor, organized by family friend Brandy Holder to raise money for a memorial duck hunt for the fallen officer's daughters. That hunt never happened. Holder withdrew nearly $5,000 from the GoFundMe campaign, according to The Washington Post. Sutton's family only saw $400 before Holder stopped returning their calls. Holder pled guilty to felony theft by conversion and was sentenced to two years in prison and another eight months on probation in October 2016, according to the Rome News-Tribune.
J.G. Spooner, a former sports radio host on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland, is known more these days for his scamming ways than his on-air personality. Spooner pled guilty in November 2016 to taking more than $6,000 from a GoFundMe campaign that he had set up for gamingdeals.shop a childhood acquaintance who suffered from cystic fibrosis. In February 2017, Spooner was sentenced to 30 months in prison for the GoFundMe fraud. He was also ordered to pay more than $16,000 in restitution. In November 2014, a woman named Cynthia Smith of Burlington, Ontario faked a rare neurological disorder to raise more than $126,000 in a campaign. According to The Hamilton Spectator, Smith convinced her loved ones that she had overcome organ failure and a massive stroke, both part of a rapid onset of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). But soon doubts were raised about Smith's supposed illness and it was determined that she was not ill. In May 2015, Smith was charged with defrauding the public of more than $5,000. Th is da ta was do ne wi th the he lp of GSA Cont ent Gene ra tor DEMO!