On the 3rd of July, I set up a gofundme acct., to raise money for a volunteer trip. I collected enough donations to buy my plane ticket, and tried to get them to send me a check. They had that option on the front page, and in the information they gave my donors.
When on Monday morning I attempted to get them to send me a check, I was prompted to enter my SS number, bank acct.information, and other personal info that was not requested when I signed up for the account.
Once their office opened, I received several 'reassuring' emails, each one insisted that it would be against the law for them to send me a check w/out my social security number and bank account information.
I told them to close my account, and refund the money to my donors. They assured me they would, and then insisted that they had refunded the money.
I just got off the phone w/one of my donors, and she has NOT gotten her money back, so I called GoFundMe, and got a lady who insisted that I had been told that it would take until the end of the week or the beginning of next week for my donors to get their money back. I was not. Then, she told me that my donors had not checked their email, and I told her I had forwarded them the email they had sent me assuring me that they had already been refunded. Every rep that I either chatted, emailed, or spoke with told a different story, tried to make it my fault, offered to 'make a note of that, it is a very valid point' and pretended to appreciate my feedback very much.
I told them that I wasn't buying it, and that I didn't want them to make a note of anything, I expected them to honor their emails insisting that they had already sent my donors their money.
Their front page is very misleading, does not request or reveal the extent of personal information that will be needed to collect one's funds, or get them refunded to the donors. Nobody should ever use these people - I have noted that pay-pal will not use them any more - I don't like pay-pal anyway, and so was relieved not to have to set up an account w/them, and that I'd be able to receive my funds by snail mail.
Please investigate - and help if you can - they only closed my account after I sent one final post to all my contacts urging them never to use their service, under any circumstances.
0 comments