[Kate McClure] was a motorist on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia who found herself stuck on an off-ramp, scared and out of gas.[Johnny Bobbitt] was a homeless veteran who told her to lock her doors, then spent his last $20 to bring her a canister of fuel.Later she sought to repay the favor, first with cereal bars and warm socks and spare dollars, then with a GoFundMe campaign to raise money so the good Samaritan would not have to sleep under a bridge...They hoped the GoFundMe would raise $10,000... In a few months, the campaign had raised more than $400,000 from nearly 14,000 donors...Instead of a house, McClure and [her partner] D’Amico got Bobbitt a camper, which they kept in their names and parked on land owned by D’Amico’s family, according to news reports. They bought him a television, a laptop and two cellphones, food and clothing — and a used SUV that was soon broken-down and idle. What he didn’t get, though, was any type of ownership over the money raised on his behalf...McClure is a receptionist for the New Jersey Department of Transportation and D’Amico is a carpenter, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. But suddenly she had a new BMW, and the couple was taking vacations to Florida and California and Las Vegas...The money that came to Bobbitt couldn’t stop his addiction. He went through two unsuccessful stints in rehab that brought him no closer to being sober...If Bobbitt’s claims are true, it would be the biggest case of GoFundMe fraud or mismanagement seen by GoFraudMe, a whistleblower organization, according to Adrienne Gonzalez, the site’s publisher.Some of the hucksters are serial scammers who start dozens or hundreds of bogus campaigns in a day, said Gonzalez. Others fake diseases, figuring no one will demand evidence of, say, a recent cancer diagnosis.
More details at the Washington Post.
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