One wonders why GoFundMe thought it was a good idea to arbitrarily redirect the Freedom Convoy funds in the first place. However, someone at the head office noticed people were not pleased with the move.
What they didn't see coming was the charge-backs from donors who were upset with the "redirection" of their funds. No, not refund requests, but credit card charge-backs which would have cost GoFraudMe somewhere between $15 and $35 each. "Voluntarily" giving people refunds will cost them far less.
Still...to not anticipate huge blowback from the expropriation of funds seems downright naive.
Anyone with any background in accounting and finance should have seen the ethical if not legal problem with their initial proposal.
Cancelling the Freedom Convoy fundraiser itself was scummy, but would have been tolerable--private company and all that--but they went that one step too far, looking to punish not just the Convoy but also the donors.
Indeed. I've just checked their "guarantee" and ToS and I see nothing in there that would allow them to arbitrarily redirect funds in the manner that they had suggested they would. In fact, their "guarantee" is pretty explicit that if they find something wrong with a funding campaign, they would return donations to the donors.
There are also a number of news reports today indicating that:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said it was fraud for GoFundMe to "commandeer" $9 million in donations sent to support protesting truckdrivers in Canada and that he will investigate what he called "deceptive practices" by the website."
Peter, I think with Big Tech, you have a bunch of "Move Fast and Break Things" types that have been enabled to skip steps of what is legal, ethical, proper, etc.
My sense is that they know who they "work for", it's our corrupt thugs in gov't. and they know that they can break laws until these thugs in power object, (and even then, if they have support from their Deep State Overlords).
And I think that's what is going on. The Deep State power centers who themselves work essentially for global oligarchy now are calling in some chips.
I don't think this is about business, or branding.
Insofar as Big Tech is concerned, I agree with you.
And I am not surprised that GoFundMe cancelled the Freedom Convoy fundraiser.
What blows my mind is they seriously proposed to exercise authority over the funds.
My college degree is in accounting and I worked for a few years in accounting before becoming a network engineer. I know from both education and experience that GoFundMe crossed a line that is simply NEVER crossed.
That part has nothing to do with Big Tech. That's the basic ethics of acting as a bailee for the funds. GoFundMe doesn't own the funds, it merely has custody of them until it releases them to the fundraiser. It has no right to decide after the fact whether the fundraiser will receive the funds, or someone else.
There was no legal basis for what they wanted to do, technology be damned.
Yes, and Uber violated and effectively rewrote labor laws and taxi regulation laws.
Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) tried to re-write medical ethics laws. With George Shultz sitting on her board!
This is a shameless criminal world forged hand and glove with the American Security State.
And it's illegal for the gov't. to pressure private parties to censor, Supreme Court has ruled. And yet here we are, Twitter, Alphabet, Linkd In, etc. all routinely do just this, and the WH applies blatant pressure to keep it up, now specifically going after Rogan!
Uber exploited the gray areas of the law. Elizabeth Holmes was a straight up fraud.
As a corrupt entity, GoFundMe is no better than these other examples. But the arrogance of thinking they could decide what to do with someone else's money is astounding. The case and statutory law regarding bailments and custodial relationships is pretty well defined and with very little gray.
GoFundMe is different in this regard: they are way more stupid than Elizabeth Holmes.
"My college degree is in accounting and I worked for a few years in accounting before becoming a network engineer. I know from both education and experience that GoFundMe crossed a line that is simply NEVER crossed."
The whole thing is a bit surreal.
New crowdfunding at https://www.givesendgo.com/FreedomConvoy2022
Raised over $1,000,000 in less than 24 hours.
I'm done with gofundme, this was the last straw. No more contributions or sharing, ever
What they didn't see coming was the charge-backs from donors who were upset with the "redirection" of their funds. No, not refund requests, but credit card charge-backs which would have cost GoFraudMe somewhere between $15 and $35 each. "Voluntarily" giving people refunds will cost them far less.
Still...to not anticipate huge blowback from the expropriation of funds seems downright naive.
Anyone with any background in accounting and finance should have seen the ethical if not legal problem with their initial proposal.
Cancelling the Freedom Convoy fundraiser itself was scummy, but would have been tolerable--private company and all that--but they went that one step too far, looking to punish not just the Convoy but also the donors.
It was a stupid move on their part.
Indeed. I've just checked their "guarantee" and ToS and I see nothing in there that would allow them to arbitrarily redirect funds in the manner that they had suggested they would. In fact, their "guarantee" is pretty explicit that if they find something wrong with a funding campaign, they would return donations to the donors.
There are also a number of news reports today indicating that:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said it was fraud for GoFundMe to "commandeer" $9 million in donations sent to support protesting truckdrivers in Canada and that he will investigate what he called "deceptive practices" by the website."
Peter, I think with Big Tech, you have a bunch of "Move Fast and Break Things" types that have been enabled to skip steps of what is legal, ethical, proper, etc.
My sense is that they know who they "work for", it's our corrupt thugs in gov't. and they know that they can break laws until these thugs in power object, (and even then, if they have support from their Deep State Overlords).
And I think that's what is going on. The Deep State power centers who themselves work essentially for global oligarchy now are calling in some chips.
I don't think this is about business, or branding.
Insofar as Big Tech is concerned, I agree with you.
And I am not surprised that GoFundMe cancelled the Freedom Convoy fundraiser.
What blows my mind is they seriously proposed to exercise authority over the funds.
My college degree is in accounting and I worked for a few years in accounting before becoming a network engineer. I know from both education and experience that GoFundMe crossed a line that is simply NEVER crossed.
That part has nothing to do with Big Tech. That's the basic ethics of acting as a bailee for the funds. GoFundMe doesn't own the funds, it merely has custody of them until it releases them to the fundraiser. It has no right to decide after the fact whether the fundraiser will receive the funds, or someone else.
There was no legal basis for what they wanted to do, technology be damned.
Yes, and Uber violated and effectively rewrote labor laws and taxi regulation laws.
Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) tried to re-write medical ethics laws. With George Shultz sitting on her board!
This is a shameless criminal world forged hand and glove with the American Security State.
And it's illegal for the gov't. to pressure private parties to censor, Supreme Court has ruled. And yet here we are, Twitter, Alphabet, Linkd In, etc. all routinely do just this, and the WH applies blatant pressure to keep it up, now specifically going after Rogan!
Go Fund Me is no different.
Uber exploited the gray areas of the law. Elizabeth Holmes was a straight up fraud.
As a corrupt entity, GoFundMe is no better than these other examples. But the arrogance of thinking they could decide what to do with someone else's money is astounding. The case and statutory law regarding bailments and custodial relationships is pretty well defined and with very little gray.
GoFundMe is different in this regard: they are way more stupid than Elizabeth Holmes.
"My college degree is in accounting and I worked for a few years in accounting before becoming a network engineer. I know from both education and experience that GoFundMe crossed a line that is simply NEVER crossed."
Time to update your map of lines then.