Bitcoin Forum

There are a few members that are asking for money to help people who are in need of food and medicine.

I have some concerns about this and I want to ask how you feel about this because there is no way to ascertain whether any funds collected are even being spent on charitable causes. With someone posting some comments or photographs about people receiving food or money does not prove anything so how can a donor be sure?

I am not saying any or all members asking for donations to help people who are in disadvantaged situations are scammers - I am not saying that !

I wish success to any endeavour by any forum member that is 100% genuine and is designed to help relieve people from worries and stress due to poverty.

What I am saying is that just because you donate some crypto with the intention of you doing a good deed does not mean that donation is going to the right place, it could in fact be going to the back pocket of the person behind the donation requests.

How can you be sure your donations will not end up being stolen?

How can you be not sure users in the forum asking for your donations are actually after merits and seeking free publicity to portray a better persona here with ulterior motives?

I give to my own selected charities, I always give to homeless people I see. Me & my girl have been sponsoring a young boy from Ghana for years, we send him stuff & receive photos & letters back to prove he’s received what we send.

People are welcome to do what they want but I will never give BTC to people on here claiming it’s for charity. No offence to anybody involved but I like to see where my money is going.

Well I guess you can't really be 100% sure, when you are giving to some organisation or someone that collects money for others. My principle is, when I generally trust someone, I will donate and won't think whether it will be used the right way or not. I simply donate and hope for the best.

If you really don't trust any 3rd party, then it's best to help someone in need directly. If you look around yourself you will certainly see people that could use your help. Problem solved.
 I often recommend that approach to those that say they never donate because they are afraid money will be stolen or used the wrong way, but when I suggest them that, they usually ignore or find some other excuse, like they will use money for drugs&alchohol etc(not that it doesn't happen ofc).

Of course, there is a suspicion of what is happening with the donated funds, but I think that some members really tried to document every step and thus show what the money was spent on. I have also participated in some charities, and I am quite satisfied with the level of transparency they have shown - but it should be emphasized that these are members who are Hero/Legendary and also DT members with a certain reputation.

I will just say that some members of this forum have shown more professionalism and transparency than most so-called charities worldwide. If UNICEF is spent at least 50% of what they get from donations then thousands of children would not die every day from hunger and curable diseases.

Congratulations, so nice to hear about the good work you are doing by sponsoring a Ghanaian child. Hopefully your help with provide much needed help for him, maybe if he can an education and then get a good job he might be able to contribute to others that are from a disadvantaged background in his local area. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story.

I agree with you, I will never give any money to any user here claiming it is for charity. I support various charities in my own way and when I travel abroad I prefer to donate directly to those in need. Like you I want to see where my donated funds are being spent.

Actually there's a way. Without trying to review any major information, @Royse777 was able to deploy a method he used to make sure the funds generated on the forum were used for a good course. He formed a team with users on the forum from different region and all those seeking for help got investigated properly. If you followed his work, you'll notice some users have been denied access to the funds they seek since their claims couldn't be verified to be authentic.

Another method he deployed to ensure funds were used rightly was he asked for you to work out a way to generate the funds, like borrowing etc and when the work is done you get refunded fully. I remember when he contacted me asking for my help in carrying out an outreach (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5252309.0) in my state . I had to run the expenses all by myself before I was refunded after the job is done. If you see a users seeking for help, and you feel like rending that help but also went the donations to be used rightly, you can asked someone that can be trusted on the forum closed to the region of the users in need to do some proper investigating, this might work.

Ps: Lets not let some bad eggs discourage us from helping those in need.

@cabalism13, @crwth and others successfully managed the donation they've got from other forum members. They actually done a lot of physical work just to deliver the relief goods in remote areas and orphanage that needs immediate help amidst the pandemic. And yeah, that is one of the most heartwarming activity that I have seen in behalf of Filipino members.

Bitcointalk Charity Program Signature Campaign - Give Hope To Everyone... (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5124375.msg54534025#msg54534025)

There is also nothing wrong why being suspicious on a charity event in the first place though. It's just that we have this eagerness that our help will actually reach those people are in need.

Thank you for the detailed post.

Regarding following the work done by Royse777, I followed next to nothing of his because I have him on my ignore and distrust list, I absolutely do not trust him and it will probably stay that way until I review things further down the line. I unignored him for the sake of reading the OP about his donation thread work but promptly added him back. I also read some posts from users asking for donations to help those in need before I created the thread.

I agree with you about not letting some bad eggs discourage donors but making donations online here can only be done with a huge element of trust and so far not everybody including myself is confident that all people asking for donations have pure intentions.

As you stated there must be positive outcomes where people in need have benefited such as in the examples you gave about your assistance in your area and so on but the element of trust before parting with either crypto or cash is the real main obstacle for many.

This is fair. Any person/organization offering a legitimate charity service wouldn't mind you circumventing them and going directly to people in need, as long as the same purpose is served and aid is given. Such services are to help those who cannot connect directly to the most vulnerable people and they should be totally transparent in the process. Suspicion leads to auditing which helps to keep such services in check, so it's welcome and should be encouraged.

The projects run on the forum were well documented and transparent, with lots of effort going into it from the members involved. It however is still a matter of trust.

I do not see a problem if the controller of such charities are kind of decentralized. Royse777 campaign was one of that type. There was escrow, there was Lauda in governing body and then Hhampuz. They together took every decision along with some investigation from some of the forum members. It's not like that Royse777 controlled everything and gave fund to everyone Royse777 wanted. Every applicant was checked case by case and if they found legit, only they paid the legit users who were able to submit enough documents.

Nice work (LOL) but excuse me:

I do not expect anyone to trust me, after all - this is bitcoin forum. And the bitcoin ideology is not trusting third party.  But this is disrespectful saying something like this openly when you do not have an explanation. May I ask what's your problem?

I suppose you grew up in a war zone where hunger, crime, poverty, killing were common and you did not have a chance to understand a civilized society.

PS: Can someone quote this post and ask to read this. A response on this would be nice. I am offended to be honest.

Here is a quote for OP that he can read the answer from Royse777.
Jolly, I’m not sure how massive ignoring helps in any discussion. If you ignore all users who're you do not want to read or disagree with you, and leaving visible only users and posts who agree with your opinion, so you can get a completely wrong picture that everything is fine and that your opinion is always 100% in right. I'm just saying that it is necessary to hear both criticism and other opinions
(Of course, this does not include spammers and professional trolls )

Only Faith, there is no other way to verify if the fund is going to the right place. If you aren't sure where you are donating and you don't trust the person to whom receiving funds for management, then it's better to donate yourself directly to your nearest helpless peoples.

This pandemic isn't limited to any specific area, so I believe, "Your donation should be given priority to the helpless people near you". And that's what I have done, of course, I had sold my earned bitcoin and help few helpless peoples those are staying around me. It doesn't mean I don't trust them who raise funds on the forum to help helpless peoples. But I feel my Neighbor and nearest peoples are claimants of my help/donation. For me, people should get help, doesn't matter who is behind it and I feel that, revelation isn't necessary.

Thank you for the link, that seems a lot of work done by those representing that charity. And thank you for stating there is nothing wrong with being suspicious or not giving the benefit of the doubt in the first place.



I agree, I noted some of the general consensus about the projects being promoted in the forum seem to well documented and transparent but as you said it is still a matter of trust.



Thank you for your input but I never alluded to any specific member behaving in an unethical manner. The project you refer to does have several respected users on-board and that might minimise the chances of anything untoward going on. As I said earlier, I wish success to any endeavour by any forum member that is 100% genuine and is designed to help relieve people from worries and stress due to poverty.



Thank you for your advice examplens, I have removed him from my ignore list. Shortly, I will reply to his post accordingly.



Yes that has already been stated as a way to donate by several people in the thread. I prefer this option.

That was a very kind gesture on your part helping people in and around your local area. I hope all the help you provided to those people that needed it really appreciate what you did. It is not easy for many people to get by on basic essentials (or lack of them), many households are struggling under lock down and are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in one way or another so your help would a blessing for them.

In our cases, we actually verified the best possible way we could.

Followings are some process we have done so far:
- Calling the hospital
- Asking medical papers with singed date then cross-check the medical papers, in some cases even to talk to some users on the forum who are physician in real life.
- Interviewing the seeker even once by calling them over phone.
- Appointing a somehow trusted forum user from their local to investigate the case
- Selecting trusted users from the forum and ask them to help us by helping their own community

To do all these things, I, Hhampuz, Lauda (when she was with us) and other guys (investigators) sometimes spend a lot of time, and we do it voluntarily. Sure JollyGood can question anything if he wants but before doing this he should be looking at the cases instead of ignoring. This is very offensive behaviour and I do not appreciate such moral.


You are not actually seeing where is your money is going to be honest. Are you very sure that on the other side that boy is receiving 100% that you are giving?

Think once - You are paying for all the expenses they have. Starting from printing, posting to expense of maintaining their full organization (office space, transportation, marketing, inventory, salary everything). Somewhere I read a publication that if you give $100 to a charity, only less than $40 goes to the person in need. You are wasting more than $60 and feeding those smart guys instead of the boy that is in the picture.

But hey, I am not saying it's bad. It's not good to know that every $60 of the $100 I am giving is using as expense of the charity I am supporting. You want to support a child or a poor fella in need? Go to the nearest train station, bus terminal - find those homeless people and give them as much as you can. Do it regularly. P2P.

Take: Crypto donations are less expensive in fact no expense at all.

I would never send any money to those people and I would never wear a signature of those organisations no matter how much they pay.

It is just wrong.

I hate charities in real life too. Most of them are scammers. (maybe I am kinda biased because they are mostly scammers in where I live)

I would never donate through here. It doesn't matter what it is, who it is or how convincing they are. If I felt strongly enough about a cause I would seek out someone dealing with it on an existing basis and force some BTC on them.

Keeping your failed attempts at sarcasm aside, I suppose the only comments of some relevance are probably these:

- "But this is disrespectful saying something like this openly when you do not have an explanation. May I ask what's your problem?"
- "Can someone quote this post and ask to read this. A response on this would be nice. I am offended to be honest."

What I wrote is not disrespectful and I am not obliged to provide an explanation when I wrote it, nor am I too concerned when you state you are offended.

Also I would say that I have no problem with you other than noting your regular comments in recent threads regarding the feedback I leave for users, it shows there is more to your comments. I understand they are just your opinions and you are entitled to them, therefore from my perspective it is fine for you to leave whichever comments you want to in those threads about me but your motives for doing so are probably rooted elsewhere.

Same case here! I do appreciate ppl helping others, but I usually do my own charity; I formed a small group here in my town and helped people get food and stuff; but always verified them personally; that's how I like it.

I agree with you, though I wouldn't go so far as to use the word hate to describe my feelings, since at least some of them do some real good in the world.  The problem I have with charities in general is how they use their donated funds--you think all the money you give a charity is going toward whatever the charity's purpose is, but the reality is that most of it goes for administrative funds or other uses that don't help anybody but the charity itself.

As far as people on bitcointalk asking for donations, I thought that was against the rules--though I'll admit I haven't read the rules in a while and don't remember a specific rule about charity-giving.  The no-begging rule I'm well aware of, and I've reported a few threads for that even though the members were claiming the funds were going to go toward a good cause. 

But even if it's allowed, I'd be extremely careful sending bitcoin to anybody here no matter what they say or who they claim they are.  There are scammers everywhere, and the way I see it is that it's more likely it's a scammer asking for your donations than a legitimate charity.

I already broke it down to some sort of figure to be honest.

It is applicable for all those big names/foundations. On the street you will see those young people are chilling out and have a bucket with strikers of any charity foundation or talking to you and trying to join you to their charity are paid jobs. Most of them works in commission based so more push more money for them.

I am glad to read you will never send money to people asking for donations, I would prioritise my own concerns for the honesty of the people behind any project over any people that might be promoted as being in need of support.  

As for you saying you hate charities as most as scammers where you live, the truth is many are like glorified organisations that have a huge expenditure for salaried staff and advertising/promotions and the work they do to help people in need is not maximised as the donations are partially be spent elsewhere.

I have seen charities operated by users here in the forum being promoted on signature campaigns in the past. Not sure how that deal worked out, if there were payments involved or not.

Yeah,,,agree with you. Couple of month earlier one social media posts took my attention and it was made by an asian news agency where they mentioned that in some middle income asian countries a group of people forced homeless childs for begging in the street. Most horrible thing is that they use physically disable children for this and take a fix amount everyday from their daily earning.

Its always better to donate for the right purpose and you will easily find helpless people around you who are struggling to manage their food, clothes and living place. Atleast you won't have to think about your donated fund spend for right purpose or not.

They operate in different ways, I have seen those offering payrate per rank although when comparing to other campaigns their payrate are using very small and most time those wearing the signature ads are just volunteers, giving out their signature space in place of donations.

I guess why I'm so positive about charity is as a result of seeing them working perfectly in my region but I understand why others are against it and won't be opposing if the community decide to put a stop to them functioning on the forum. It's an easy avenue for scammers to decieving others into sending them their coins. Sad but we just have to leave with that.

You are giving your money with good intention that's all that matter I believe. Now if you give in good will and you just gave your money for the poor now you do not know whether it will reach the poor or not but you have faith in it. Or the best thing you can do it you give directly to the person, instead of helping people from other countries why not spend on your country on your own people/neighbors/relatives?

TEX-LXRY

Great thinking, I have somewhat of a similar idea. Donating to people here in the forum is simply not an option for me but it seems several users have done it. Just feeling strongly about a cause should not be enough to part with crypto, there is so much more to it than just sending your donation.

I wish you success in your charity work. I hope the small group you work with manage to get larger in scale and manage to help more and more people who are in need. The fact you verify them before parting with food stock is an excellent thing, I hope you continue your excellent work.


Just like I also have a problem with large charity organisations because they take a huge share of donations to pay staff salaries and for various administrative costs and how much of that actually goes to good causes?

I never considered about whether asking for donations was against forum rules but there are threads created specifically for the purpose of charity, they have been around some time therefore safe to say "asking for donations" threads are not considered the same as "begging" otherwise they would have been removed by now.

Unfortunately that's a common occurrence in my country and that is also why I'm over cautious... Infact even charity has been over shadowed by mafia and their ilk.

P.S. None of the posts are claiming any misappropriation on part of Royse; please don't take it personally and keep up the good work.

This is true. Several people have posted about this, it is always better to try to find people closer to your own area who might need help rather than send crypto or cash to people that might be doing a good charitable job but are considered untrustworthy by the donor.

Just posting my opinion here, not trying to make someone look bad.

There have been trusted users who are raising money for donations - this is not a bad thing as long as you trust them. Point is that I believe in Karma. If they are scamming then they will be punished because the donators are giving in good faith, that is the least we can rely on.

It is like similar to the unspoker rules of the internet that "Every user on the internet is male unless you know them in real life" , similarly if you know them, well and good.

However I have never been a supporter of donations for poor. I have always followed the ideal of "Teach the man how to fish and he will feed himself". Giving money to someone might make you feel good but it does not solve the problem.

Anyway, the ones who are organizing these charities, good luck to them. It is the choice of the person donating to trust them or not. If they are making a wrong decision there is no way to find out easily, nobody forced them to donate anyway.

I too believe in this; but then when I see old people neglected by society in poor homes and such; when our collective society has failed as a social system, what do u teach them? Or the babies who r at an orphanage?

There will always be ppl who cannot be taught and even if they r capable, covid has rendered them helpless; eg there is a construction site close to my house; work wasnt taking place for like 2-3 months and they werent paid their dues for past 2-3 weeks too; what do u expect to teach them?

It's not always 'the poor'. It could be a straightforward emergency such as a natural disaster. It could be building infrastructure that does exactly what your quote advocates. In both of those cases there are - some - longstanding organisations who'll do a rather more professional job than some rando on here.

Yes sadly the bad apples are the ones that put a shade on the good work of others that might be trying to do something positive to help those in need. Scammers could easily have made a tidy amount of cash for themselves after appealing for donations so the donor really has to do a lot of research before parting with their crypto.

*bump*

Another donation scammers
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=779448

Connected accounts: dmz241 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=302424), elmanchez (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2553198)