Have you had members post asking people to send them money? What did you do?

First version - Member is raising money for something to do with the forum topic. Could be an exhibition, a related charity, anything, but the funds are said to be destined to the cause, not the member themselves.

Second version - Member just straight out asks people to send them money for their personal use. With some tale of hardship or ambition - "so I can get needed surgery," "so I can turn my life around and go to school," etc.

What did you do? What would you do if this came up?

Would you make a public rule about it (or do you have one?) Or just deal with it case-by-case?



It's a rare event but we had it again recently. A long-time member just straight out asked for money for an elective surgery she wants for some wonderful self-improving reason. We pulled that out of sight - for heaven's sake it's a model horse hobby site, we do have off-topic but the site is not a bank of grants to members with a good personal story. :unhunh:

A couple years ago a member posted a tale of parental restrictions amounting to abuse - not allowed to leave the house for school or work, etc and so on. Did not ask for money but well-meaning other members started raising funds to rescue her. (How??) This did not go well - it's the internet, we have no idea the real story behind what anyone says.

And we've had a few people wanting to raise money to put on hobby events. But most have the sense to ask for donations of hobby items they can sell to benefit the event, rather than just begging.

I'm thinking my site doesn't need a public rule as begging isn't common and we don't want to suggest it. But we do need a standard policy for the mods what to simply move out of sight, immediately, with a discouraging note to the poster.

 

It got bad. Members started accusing others of theft, etc.
In the end, we close down those threads and let the members know
"If you want a donate link in your sig, fine. Thats all"

 

this hasnt come up before for me, although once a staff member was doing something to raise money for charity, and wanted to post a link to ask people to donate money. i think that was perfectly fine, and we did get pictures afterwards of her taking part in the event she was doing to raise money. i would allow something like that, but not if a member was asking for money to help themselfes, because they could be lying to get money

 

Had this too on my forum maybe twice for charity things, everytime this was going into the wrong direction and caused a real bad taste. After this experience if there's a new charity post starting I'll shut it down immediately.

 

If they linked or urged donations to a well-established charity, I'd allow it. If they wanted people to send money to their Paypal address for later donation to charity, I'd probably either remove the post or add a big fat disclaimer that the forum does not endorse this post, send money at your own risk.

Personal donations are trickier. If it was a long-standing member who had a good track record and had met other members in real life, I'd not only allow it but I'd probably send them something myself. If it seemed like they'd only joined the forum to talk about their money problems and look for sympathy, I'd probably think they were a scammer.

The first situation you describe, where the money would go for elective surgery, I'd delete. I can see the flame war now...

In the second situation, I'd try to help that member look up resources they could turn to in their area (counselors, social workers, maybe even police) or get other members to visit them.

 

I tell my members to get a job. I don't want to deal with this.

Now, there have been times where I have asked my members to donate to charities at their own discression. When I do this, I make a thread and I say that it will be open to this date. For every post, I will donate 1 to 10 cents...but as my forum got bigger, I stuck to 1 cent since it gets big real quick. When I close the thread, I will donate the amount out of my own pocket. Members can donate to me for the donation and I will include it or they can do it themselves.

 

I'll allow recognized charities, but I'll delete anything else.

 

That is a sound policy, imo.

That's a good policy - donate link in the sig, but no further information/soliciting on the forum itself. Both for hobby and for other causes.

The "rescue" got really complicated and in the end suspicions of 'theft' took over the original "rescue." One member was collecting and yet another was trying to contact the person and enlist social assistance (no 'official' forum involvement other than just as a sort of unauthorized posting board for all the info.) The proposed rescue-ee never asked for any of this assistance, and turned out not to want it. Further complicating the picture was that she might have still been a minor. The whole thing degenerated into a flaming controversy with skeptical members doubting the original story, doubting choices made by the op even if the story were true, and questioning where the funds were really going. The funds collected needed to be returned to the donors and that turned into a mess, thankfully forum officially not involved ... Anyway, that one became a case study in how cloudy truth is over the internet, and why internet donations can be even murkier.

 

Plus, most of the time, they are bots. At least in my case. ALTHOUGH, I do get members asking others to donate 1 month (of XBOX Live) since I have a gaming forum or something similar. In that case, they do jobs for each other or get complained to.