GoFundMe has refunded people who donated to a viral campaign ostensibly intended to benefit a Philadelphia homeless man and that authorities now allege was an elaborate scam, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
On Thursday, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey announced formal charges against the three people involved in a viral GoFundMe campaign that raised $550,000 last year to help a homeless man get on his feet. Authorities said that “the entire campaign was predicated on a lie”.
Last year, a New Jersey couple raised $US400,000 (that’s around AU$553,431) on GoFundMe to help a kind homeless man get his life back together. Now, the man’s attorney says all the money is gone and his client received only a fraction of the donations.