Trucker GoFundMe (split from: Covid-19 miscellany)

[Derec]

I dunno. Part of me thinks GoFundMe should have turned over the list of donors to the applicable government/law enforcement bodies. Of course that might have held up refunds.

Do you think they should have done the same with those donating to insurrectionist CHAZ occupiers or other illegal #BLM actions?
Or is your position the ideologically one-sided one I have come to expect from you?

 

[Derec]

I'm no expert on Canada, but I'm pretty sure that the deliberately blocking highways and streets, for personal reasons, is against some law.

And yet GoFundMe allows donation to #BLM who blocked streets, bridges and highways on many occasions over the last 8 years.

 

[Toni]

I'm no expert on Canada, but I'm pretty sure that the deliberately blocking highways and streets, for personal reasons, is against some law.

And yet GoFundMe allows donation to #BLM who blocked streets, bridges and highways on many occasions over the last 8 years.

Do you or do you not condemn the truckers blockading Ottawa and other cities in Canada? Or do you save your outrage for your political opponents?

 

[Derec]

Do you or do you not condemn the truckers blockading Ottawa and other cities in Canada? Or do you save your outrage fir your political leanings?

I do condemn them, and I said so further upthread. Just like I condemn #BLM and Antifa when they block highways and occupy territory. Do you condemn them? Or are you still making excuses like you have been since they started this shit in 2014?
And I also think companies like GoFundMe or Twitter should be consistent in how they apply their terms of service.

 

[Toni]

Do you or do you not condemn the truckers blockading Ottawa and other cities in Canada? Or do you save your outrage fir your political leanings?

I do condemn them, and I said so further upthread. Just like I condemn #BLM and Antifa when they block highways and occupy territory. Do you condemn them? Or are you still making excuses like you have been since they started this shit in 2014?
And I also think companies like GoFundMe or Twitter should be consistent in how they apply their terms of service.

Don’t Listen to Fox. Here’s What’s Really Going On in Seattle’s Protest Zone.

What’s happening in these four blocks that shook the world is indeed an occupation, but it looks nothing like the “totalitarian takeover” touted on the conservative network.

www.politico.com

I’m not in favor of any group taking over a city, municipality or borders.

But I don’t equate the truckers protesting life saving measures with BLM protesting police violence.

 

[TV and credit cards]

It’s good to see the MSM post up stories of how this is affecting the supply chain.
It’s necessary to let this selfish shit play out a bit so people can see how it affects the economy before clamping down on the situation. AP claims there’s plans to disrupt the Super Bowl. Would this be a smart move on their part? As far as public perception goes, this would be a Jan. 6 level boneheaded idea.
Part of me wants to see their licenses suspended, trucks impounded, and crybabies fined.
Another part of me just wants my door thresholds that have been on backorder for weeks.
There’s not a whole lot of room left for sympathy.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Do you or do you not condemn the truckers blockading Ottawa and other cities in Canada? Or do you save your outrage fir your political leanings?

I do condemn them, and I said so further upthread. Just like I condemn #BLM and Antifa when they block highways and occupy territory. Do you condemn them? Or are you still making excuses like you have been since they started this shit in 2014?
And I also think companies like GoFundMe or Twitter should be consistent in how they apply their terms of service.

Don’t Listen to Fox. Here’s What’s Really Going On in Seattle’s Protest Zone.

What’s happening in these four blocks that shook the world is indeed an occupation, but it looks nothing like the “totalitarian takeover” touted on the conservative network.

www.politico.com

I’m not in favor of any group taking over a city, municipality or borders.

But I don’t equate the truckers protesting life saving measures with BLM protesting police violence.

I agree. I do think though that actions such as blocking traffic and making life miserable for the locals (Portland Oregon still hasn't recovered) will lead to blowback and loss of support for the Truckers; just as it did for the Antifa and defund the police movement.

 

[TomC]

I'm no expert on Canada, but I'm pretty sure that the deliberately blocking highways and streets, for personal reasons, is against some law.

And yet GoFundMe allows donation to #BLM who blocked streets, bridges and highways on many occasions over the last 8 years.

Surely you've noticed how much I DON'T support BLM. I put them in about the same category as these truckers.

That said, I would also vehemently oppose the government treating groups differently. But GFM isn't the government, it's a private concern. I don't really even have a firm opinion on whether GFM is being unfair or not. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a public relations issue for a private company. A company who provides a service that looks ripe for abuse and hucksters. It looks to me like a bunch of donors gave money without reading the fine print.

For all I know, maybe the metric GFM is using is demographic likelihood to use the service. If BLM supporters typically give money to things over 5 times each, and antivaxxers rarely give twice each, I would totally understand why GFM interprets their own rules differently. It's just business.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've used GFM to help out a couple of friends who had accts. set up or had them set up on their behalf. I heard directly from recipients so I know that they got the funds although to be frank, we never mentioned dollar amounts. It was very, very, very difficult for them to have to admit they needed help. GFM is just a ...convenient way to help someone. I don't know if GFM takes a cut of what is donated but you DO have the option to 'tip.' Actually, I think there is a small percentage fee....It's been a while so I don't remember.

Yeah, there is a % fee. Anything involving credit cards pretty much has to have a fee because the credit card is going to eat up some of the money.

 

[Metaphor]

I've used GFM to help out a couple of friends who had accts. set up or had them set up on their behalf. I heard directly from recipients so I know that they got the funds although to be frank, we never mentioned dollar amounts. It was very, very, very difficult for them to have to admit they needed help. GFM is just a ...convenient way to help someone. I don't know if GFM takes a cut of what is donated but you DO have the option to 'tip.' Actually, I think there is a small percentage fee....It's been a while so I don't remember.

Yeah, there is a % fee. Anything involving credit cards pretty much has to have a fee because the credit card is going to eat up some of the money.

GFM is a for-profit, privately held, $600m company. It is not a charity.

 

[Toni]

I've used GFM to help out a couple of friends who had accts. set up or had them set up on their behalf. I heard directly from recipients so I know that they got the funds although to be frank, we never mentioned dollar amounts. It was very, very, very difficult for them to have to admit they needed help. GFM is just a ...convenient way to help someone. I don't know if GFM takes a cut of what is donated but you DO have the option to 'tip.' Actually, I think there is a small percentage fee....It's been a while so I don't remember.

Yeah, there is a % fee. Anything involving credit cards pretty much has to have a fee because the credit card is going to eat up some of the money.

GFM is a for-profit, privately held, $600m company. It is not a charity.

I believe we are all aware.

You have a point?

 

[Metaphor]

I've used GFM to help out a couple of friends who had accts. set up or had them set up on their behalf. I heard directly from recipients so I know that they got the funds although to be frank, we never mentioned dollar amounts. It was very, very, very difficult for them to have to admit they needed help. GFM is just a ...convenient way to help someone. I don't know if GFM takes a cut of what is donated but you DO have the option to 'tip.' Actually, I think there is a small percentage fee....It's been a while so I don't remember.

Yeah, there is a % fee. Anything involving credit cards pretty much has to have a fee because the credit card is going to eat up some of the money.

GFM is a for-profit, privately held, $600m company. It is not a charity.

I believe we are all aware.

You have a point?

Yes. You and Loren keep talking about it as if it were one.

 

[Toni]

I've used GFM to help out a couple of friends who had accts. set up or had them set up on their behalf. I heard directly from recipients so I know that they got the funds although to be frank, we never mentioned dollar amounts. It was very, very, very difficult for them to have to admit they needed help. GFM is just a ...convenient way to help someone. I don't know if GFM takes a cut of what is donated but you DO have the option to 'tip.' Actually, I think there is a small percentage fee....It's been a while so I don't remember.

Yeah, there is a % fee. Anything involving credit cards pretty much has to have a fee because the credit card is going to eat up some of the money.

GFM is a for-profit, privately held, $600m company. It is not a charity.

I believe we are all aware.

You have a point?

Yes. You and Loren keep talking about it as if it were one.

No we don’t. I certainly am well aware that GFM is not a charity and I certainly respect Loren’s intelligence enough to feel certain he is equally aware.

I still don t get your problem.

 

[Bronzeage]

There are plenty of Go Fund Me campaigns which get shut down when it's discovered the campaign violates the TOS, either from the start, or later.

I haven't heard of any case where undispersed funds were not returned to the donor.

In any case, I'd be interested to see how the campaign organizers intended to distribute the money and who was doing the book keeping.

 

[Metaphor]

Believe it or not, in the US, the police or FBI or any other law enforcement agency does not monitor every single donation anyone makes on GoFundMe or any other platform.

Believe it or not, in the US, charitable organizations and such have a legal responsibility to do what they claim they are doing: To use the money they collect for the things they say they will. They can get into big trouble for doing otherwise.

You said the above in post 23. I read the second paragraph ("charitable organizations") as referring to GFM. "To use the money they collect" appears to me to be referring to GFM, because GFM was collecting the money.

If the second paragraph wasn't meant to be about GFM, then I was mistaken.

 

[Toni]

Which they quite quickly switched to simply processing refunds without any effort on the part of the donors.

Normally one has to ask fir a refund. gFM found a way to streamline the process.

This is ri-fucking-diculous.

The facts are not under dispute. I relayed the events as they happened, including GFM's original position and their changed position. Everyone agrees that GFM unilaterally decided that the convoy violated its terms and conditions, and that its original plan was to disburse the remaining funds to charities of its choosing, less any funds that had been refunded via manual request.

A position which GFM had revised before it was even discussed in this forum.

I find it amazing that they so quickly were able to revise their processes to automatically refund $10M to thousands of donors so quickly. It’s not a small undertaking.

 

[Metaphor]

I find it amazing that they so quickly were able to revise their processes to automatically refund $10M to thousands of donors so quickly. It’s not a small undertaking.

My thinking is that it would be easier to automatically refund everyone than to process manual refund requests. In fact, it is my understanding that this is already built in to GFM's platform. If a donation goal doesn't reach some pre-determined level by some pre-determined time, all donations are automatically refunded.

 

[Toni]

Do you think GFM should have automatically refunded the donators, or do you think they should have stuck to their original announced position of disbursing it to charities of its choosing?

That twice now you've dishonestly misrepresented GFM's stated position on the matter. They clearly stated that anyone who wants a refund can have one by simply asking. Anything left would then go to charity. Why do you keep leaving out the part about the refunds?

I have not once dishonestly misrepresented anything.

It's right there above for all to see. And you did it before too.

I didn't do it once let alone twice.

Sure Jan. You know we can see you, right?

I know you could quote the posts where you think I've misrepresented the situation with GFM.

I'll wait.

All of them.

 

[Toni]

I find it amazing that they so quickly were able to revise their processes to automatically refund $10M to thousands of donors so quickly. It’s not a small undertaking.

My thinking is that it would be easier to automatically refund everyone than to process manual refund requests. In fact, it is my understanding that this is already built in to GFM's platform. If a donation goal doesn't reach some pre-determined level by some pre-determined time, all donations are automatically refunded.

You are familiar with the operations systems of major corporations?

 

[Toni]

Believe it or not, in the US, the police or FBI or any other law enforcement agency does not monitor every single donation anyone makes on GoFundMe or any other platform.

Believe it or not, in the US, charitable organizations and such have a legal responsibility to do what they claim they are doing: To use the money they collect for the things they say they will. They can get into big trouble for doing otherwise.

You said the above in post 23. I read the second paragraph ("charitable organizations") as referring to GFM. "To use the money they collect" appears to me to be referring to GFM, because GFM was collecting the money.

If the second paragraph wasn't meant to be about GFM, then I was mistaken.

You’re mistaken. You should read that post more carefully—as in every word.