Bitcointalk Charity and its funds

[suchmoon]

I still have mixed feelings about it, it's at least very naive not to keep accurate records.

In hindsight, with the ~2 BTC - yes.

However it didn't start like that. I didn't donate to this specific effort but I've given money in similar circumstances. Let's say you give $100 to someone halfway across the world and the person provided e.g. a picture of a happy crowd with what could be $100 worth of groceries in front of them, is a receipt going to change anything? Without being there in person you have no way to verify it so comes down to trusting - or not - that person with the $100. And if you didn't ask for a receipt to begin with, you'd be an asshole to start asking for it a year later.

Anyway, with the somewhat spotty evidence provided I have no reason to believe that crwth is at fault here. There seem to be significant amounts gone to the other two guys, so there is probably more work needed to untangle that part.

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[Timelord2067]

...

If someone across the street much less halfway across the globe asked you to donate $100 to their cause you wouldn't until you had done some checks and balances.


@crwth - what sort of advance notification did you or the others receive that an entire bitcoin would twice be donated?

[suchmoon]

If someone across the street much less halfway across the globe asked you to donate $100 to their cause you wouldn't until you had done some checks and balances.

Apples and oranges. Across the street you can "check and balance" in person. Not feasible halfway across the world, not for $100 anyway. And most of the information provided remotely (pictures, receipts, spreadsheets) can be faked. So it comes down to trust.

[Poker Player]

Ok so, I am going to write what I hope will be my last comment in this thread and I'm done with it. Unless now cabalism13 and bl4nkcode show up with receipts etc. I don't think it's worth giving the matter any more thought.

I find what suchmoon has said quite sensible, and I said something similar in this thread before he wrote. If I give $50 to a charity, seeing a picture is good enough for me. If you want to show a receipt, all the better, but at the end of the day both the photo and the receipt can be forged, and this is not a professional charity, they were three friends who tried to help people with small contributions that they received at first, the problem came when they received very considerable amounts.

For me there are several things that make me think that crwth deserves the benefit of the doubt, and this is what the community has understood, because if you go to his trust page, the flag is not shown for insufficient support and only the negative feedback of DireWolfM14 is left:

1) The amount of money. He received and handled considerably less money than cabalism13 and bl4nkcode.

2) His attitude. The best of the three people involved in this.

3) He neither ran the charity nor was he the escrow. Although here we could say that he is partly to blame too, I think he is less to blame than the other two, and this is how the community has understood it.

[Timelord2067]

...

OR, of the three UID's it's the one that *might* be salvageable to resume participation in signature campaigns in the New Year.

Relevant addresses:

33tZjC2ZdVib9JLdWZH4rg7HzhuuTG5WZd - crwth

33c9Df6J6vkGU1cuX84AePoeH2qzuzbcF1 - cabalism13
3LjVmpw2wDWawaPGa8Lj5JYjYciXDAePbW - cabalism13

• 33tZjC2ZdVib9JLdWZH4rg7HzhuuTG5WZd - is part of Wallet [00000dd86b] which has 7,860,540 total transactions (i.e. it's an online wallet/address) and is attributed to crwth
• 33c9Df6J6vkGU1cuX84AePoeH2qzuzbcF1 - is part of Wallet [00000dd86b] which has 7,860,540 total transactions (i.e. it's an online wallet/address) and is attributed to cabalism13
• 3LjVmpw2wDWawaPGa8Lj5JYjYciXDAePbW - is part of Wallet [00000dd86b] which has 7,860,540 total transactions (i.e. it's an online wallet/address) and is attributed to cabalism13

Yes, it's an online wallet that both crewth and cabalism13 use - more reason not to have 2+ BTC sitting vulnerable.

[cryptoaddictchie]

By the way, such images can be easily made up, faked or what's not?
You have provided some receipts, do they really prove anything? I really don't think so.

Yes but in our country (same with crwth) receipts often looks like that so I can attest that he is showing you the exact receipt that he did get from purchase. I don't think being grilled like this have some sort of chance to lie of what was being wanted by most of us here don't you think? Also it does prove something of their spent from the charity money, so I think that's a common sense it did prove something.

I also think that crwth joins the charity to help some people that needed funds. So in this kind of scenario everyone should at least give them some good points aside from the negative aspect of their transactions alone. But I understand that there should be a transparent document presenting those spent charity funds which I assume (loss, misplaced, or whatsonot). Anyway, clearly seeing some advance on their part to present some receipts.

Anyway, with the somewhat spotty evidence provided I have no reason to believe that crwth is at fault here. There seem to be significant amounts gone to the other two guys, so there is probably more work needed to untangle that part.

Maybe we just need to wait, but I have a question:  Let say that some of the receipts or evidence were gone or cant be presented, is voucher acceptable for the audit or you think everyone would consider that as forging. Chances some of those receipts are probably lost due to some reason right? What will be the judgement for that.

[tranthidung]

Yes but in our country (same with crwth) receipts often looks like that so I can attest that he is showing you the exact receipt that he did get from purchase. I don't think being grilled like this have some sort of chance to lie of what was being wanted by most of us here don't you think? Also it does prove something of their spent from the charity money, so I think that's a common sense it did prove something.

Traditionally in finance, management, scientific research, there are retention periods in which you will have to store all records safely and have to obey clear rules for destruction of data.

I don't think we have such things with spontaneous charities. There are no Memorandum of understanding (MOU). I meant in spontaneous activities, such requirements only be raised after suspicious things which can be right accusation or just misunderstanding or mis-communication  or just bad operation (but it's different than scam). In the end, operators will bear the most disadvantages if they are non-scammers!

So as I said, if you want something clear and professional, go to big charity foundations which are easily to find. If you participate in spontaneous charities & have clear ideas about what might happen, you should bring such requirements at beginning before you send your donation.

As I said, it is not my backing words for this charity. Just fact in life!

[Bttzed03]

~

Three scrunched up receipts from eleven months ago.  Two are hand written with no contact details and a vague letter "C" as if that's supposed to explain all.

Then receipt 0367 in image three has the wording: This document is not valid for claim of input taxes."

Did it occur to you on reading (the tax disclaimer) that you might run into difficulties later on down the track if there were an audit of your expenditure?

Just want to shed some light on those receipts, they are not considered Official Receipts and therefore not qualified to be used for input taxes. It's a common practice among small-medium businesses (registered/unegistered) here not to use receipts approve by the BIR because it costs more and it takes time to get one from authorized printing companies.

The C usually means Cash payment and that's also a common practice.

[condoras]

So, just because this wasn't an entity, some big charity organization, they have the excuse not to track everything that they do. How serious is that, especially when you handle others' money for a cause? Keeping a simple excel and a small box of candies to put all the receipts that you will get, needs an accountant or removes the term "spontaneous" or by being spontaneous you lose the seriousness? Besides, they started by keeping things in (some) order but suddenly, forget to continue it. There is a magical way to forget to do it, at some point?
Some said that they started with good intentions but they "lost" it on their way. So? Greater initiatives, bigger projects, "lose" it, and along lost the funds that they suppose to keep/ spent for a reason. They are excused because they didn't start with such intentions?

If for any reason they can't keep up the work that they started, they should inform and stop it. They didn't. If anyone from their team was in need of taking some of the charity funds for personal use, they should inform. They didn't. If they spend money for doing what they suppose to do but they miss taking a receipt (?), they should take action and get it. They didn't. If someone from their team was accused of mishandling the funds, they should react/ respond from day one and not in person but publicly. They didn't. The problem is that they knew what to do but they miss it on the way... And the questions about where is the money and why this (suddenly) happens remain...
As for the Covid issue, I'm already on the 9th day of my quarantine but I can write a post in a day...

[PrimeNumber7]

Was money used in Binance launchpad?

No. it was converted right away using p2p of Binance, PM me for my bank details if you need it

Your bank?  This was donated bitcoin if I'm reading this whole thing correctly, so what does your bank have to do with any of that?

Has money been used as personal funds?

To be honest, yes. I have used 500$ from the funds back then for the medications of my deceased grandfather, I even asked before I did that on my Filipino Community

An escrow (especially for a charity) is NEVER supposed to use donated funds, not even if your grandfather is dying.  Those funds are supposed to be untouched.  Do none of you understand that?  Apparently you don't, and I don't care about the sob story, because we've all heard that excuse a million times on this forum. 

Also, there's nobody who could possibly give you permission to use donated funds for personal reasons.  Nobody except the donors collectively, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't your Filipino community, which has jack shit to do with any of this.

I would point out that funds donated to charity are intended to be spent, so any "escrow agent" would obviously need to facilitate spending any coin received in order to convert it to fiat in order to eventually donate it to charitable causes. This is unlike an escrow agent facilitating a transaction between two people when the money should not be touched until the parties agree to release the coin to the other party (unless there is some agreement otherwise).

I would expect most donations to be converted to fiat before being put to good causes.

While reading this thread, I did not approve of cabalism13 using $500 for medicine for his grandfather, however upon reviewing the spreadsheet that crwth posted, it looks like, in April 2019, some of the money was sent to legendster with a reference that talks about donating to various what looks like "go-fund-me" pages (or more accurately, a fundraiser hosted by a competitor of go fund me) for medical expenses.

I think there should have been some transparency regarding the transaction to help cabalism13's grandfather, as it appeared to be the case for many other times that funds were disbursed.

Another major issue is that the thread announcing the "charity" is very vague as to what the funds would be used for, and as to the level of documentation that would be kept and presented publicly to prove that donations were actually made. I would personally like a very detailed accounting of specific expenses, I think it is difficult to justify demanding receipts months (or longer?) after the fact.

Overall, I think those involved did a poor job running the charity, as it appears there is a lack of confidence in its operation, and expenses have not been well documented. There is also a lack of documentation as to what funds would be spent on, so those involved are not setting expectations for their donors. I would recommend against donating to the "Bitcointalk Charity Program".

cabalism13: "And lastly afaik, that last money was transferred to bank's Binance address and was converted I think about ~350k".
yahoo62272: "350k? I didn't think the balance was that high. Under 2 BTC last I remember".
cabalism13: "It was".

This is very likely a unit of measure of cabalism13's local currency. Based on what others have written in this thread, he is based in the Philippines, so he was likely referring to 350k of Phillippines local currency.

[LoyceV]

The balance that I received and converted to PHP

The second pictures adds up to 0.14500002BTC, so I assume it included 0.00050002BTC of your own funds. This turned into 244,846.31PHP.

For the receipts, I did manage to recover some. The thermal paper in supermarkets always has this tendency to fade right away.

It's folded too. Can you decipher as much as possible, to clarify what's on there? The total looks like 112,836.50PHP, which makes up a large part of the total amount spend. If that's covered, it's a good start.
For the other 2 receipts: can you specify what it was for?

You know, I was really trying to help because my intention for this is good and to be tied up and accused of different stuff feels so demotivating.

Even though I think you probably deserve the benefit of the doubt, the fact that there is reason to doubt is on you, for not keeping accurate records.

I do hope to continue this and possibly with better guidance at the helm to prevent this situation again. Together as a community, we aim to be better and help a lot more people in the future.

I'm curious: what's your opinion (now) on the way cabalism13 and bL4nkcode handled this?

your labor fee

I don't think there should be a "labor fee" for a charity created by a community. If there is, it would make the ones running the charity basically employees, and even though I know that's all business as usual for the large corporations that pose as charities, it doesn't seem right for a community event.

By the way, such images can be easily made up, faked or what's not?
You have provided some receipts, do they really prove anything? I really don't think so.

Receipts can always be faked up to a certain extend, but what other options does he have to prove anything?

I've been sitting on the fence here (very uncomfortable) and honestly can't figure out what crwth is accused of. There were pictures provided of activities that seemed legit. I don't think the original thread promised detailed receipts.

All fair points.

However, it already happened. I don't think it is good to ask for all receipts for purchases months or 2 years ago.

It shouldn't have been necessary for the community to ask for receipts, I would have expected the escrow to collect those.

I don't expect such transparent things when I donate my money to charity.

I barely donate to charity, and one of the reasons is the lack of transparency (Steve Hughes has a point).

What does the holiday season have to do with any of this?

I can imagine people have offline obligations during those days.

there's been ample time for all of them to respond in this thread.

Fair point, cynical me would ask if it was intentional for crwth to post this on Christmas.

Three scrunched up receipts from eleven months ago.  Two are hand written with no contact details and a vague letter "C" as if that's supposed to explain all.

As far as I know, that is quite common for receipts in the Philippines. I find it strange there's not even a business name on the receipts, but even in the Netherlands I've been handed similar receipts in the past.

@LoyceV - was it really necessary to give this person four merits for a Covid test receipt and three vague hand written receipts (one of which is for *bags*?) from eleven months ago. ?

I think the response of one of the accused users is worth reading. Feel free to continue this discussion here.

they never promised to have detailed reports whatsoever

This was promised:

Updates, Activities, Images will be posted here as soon as we have conducted such activities.

Do you think the posts after the large donations were sufficient?

I still have mixed feelings about it, it's at least very naive not to keep accurate records.

In hindsight, with the ~2 BTC - yes.
~ Let's say you give $100 to someone halfway across the world and the person provided e.g. a picture of a happy crowd with what could be $100 worth of groceries in front of them, is a receipt going to change anything?

Agreed. For $100, that's great! And after the large donations, things should have been improved but the opposite happened: there were less posts about how funds were spent.

Without being there in person you have no way to verify it so comes down to trusting - or not - that person with the $100. And if you didn't ask for a receipt to begin with, you'd be an asshole to start asking for it a year later.

True, but nobody is asking for the $100 receipt. I don't think anyone doubts the charity was run very well at that time.

Anyway, with the somewhat spotty evidence provided I have no reason to believe that crwth is at fault here. There seem to be significant amounts gone to the other two guys, so there is probably more work needed to untangle that part.

Agreed.

I am giving crwth my benefit of the doubt.

there are several things that make me think that crwth deserves the benefit of the doubt

I also think crwth deserves the benefit of the doubt.

it's an online wallet that both crewth and cabalism13 use

I don't think it's a secret many Filipinos use coins.ph.

[PrimeNumber7]

your labor fee

I don't think there should be a "labor fee" for a charity created by a community. If there is, it would make the ones running the charity basically employees, and even though I know that's all business as usual for the large corporations that pose as charities, it doesn't seem right for a community event.

[\quote]It is actually unusual for someone providing a service for, working for, or performing administrative tasks for charities to not receive payment for said work. 

The executive management of the American Red Cross, for example are paid quite a lot for running the charity.

I don’t think that anyone is claiming that anyone involved has paid themselves a salary out of charity funds.   

[suchmoon]

So, just because this wasn't an entity, some big charity organization, they have the excuse not to track everything that they do. How serious is that, especially when you handle others' money for a cause? Keeping a simple excel and a small box of candies to put all the receipts that you will get, needs an accountant or removes the term "spontaneous" or by being spontaneous you lose the seriousness? Besides, they started by keeping things in (some) order but suddenly, forget to continue it. There is a magical way to forget to do it, at some point?

Was there ever an itemized list with receipts, like we're expecting now? I skimmed through the thread and I didn't see it. There as sporadic reporting of activities. Whether that's enough should be up to people who donated but I think they should have asked about it much sooner if that was a concern.

Here's the rough timeline involving the 1 BTC donations:

• Charity starts in March 2019.
• 1 BTC is donated about a year later (May 2020). It would seem that the charity had established a track record by that time and someone sending them 1 BTC is a serious endorsement. The charity had handled a total of ~0.1 BTC by that time.
• If that's not convincing, the same entity (funds coming from the change address of the prior transaction) sends them 1 BTC again six months later (November 2020). It would seem again that this large donor is happy with the work they're doing.
• Another year goes by (December 2021) and we're retroactively asking for accounting.

I would be interested in the opinion of the large donor - why they donated, and if they're happy with the outcome. But I guess they're unlikely to come forward.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the community asking questions, it's just that it's starting to sound a bit like digging up a trade of someone selling some trinket a year ago and now asking for a tracking number with signature confirmation. Let's be real, we won't get detailed receipts for every satoshi. Perhaps lowering those expectations and asking cabalism13 et al what is feasible to provide would be more productive, instead of facing them with an impossible task.

Some said that they started with good intentions but they "lost" it on their way. So? Greater initiatives, bigger projects, "lose" it, and along lost the funds that they suppose to keep/ spent for a reason. They are excused because they didn't start with such intentions?

I wouldn't say "excused" but certainly it matters a lot what the expectations of donors are. If donors are like "don't waste your time on detailed accounting" and the charity runs basically on volunteer work, I can understand how the lack of accounting happens. But it wouldn't justify pocketing or losing charity money, if that's what happened here.

[DireWolfM14]

I've decided to remove my support for crwth's flag, and I've deleted my red-tag.

@crwth, thanks for providing the requested information, and I'm glad to hear you're feeling better.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the community asking questions, it's just that it's starting to sound a bit like digging up a trade of someone selling some trinket a year ago and now asking for a tracking number with signature confirmation. Let's be real, we won't get detailed receipts for every satoshi. Perhaps lowering those expectations and asking cabalism13 et al what is feasible to provide would be more productive, instead of facing them with an impossible task.

You've made some good points, and bring up some good questions.  One thing that occurred to me is that the administrators of the charity were all donating their time and putting in the effort to get things done.  This is usually the way charities start, but at some point compensation for their effort should be considered.  This also speaks to the other points you've made about expectations (or lack there of) placed on the administrators, and how they should be validated.

Just to be clear to those who are opposed to the tags and flags; as I've demonstrated above, they are not permanent.  They do however, serve the purpose of demonstrating that there are concerns about how the donations are being spent.

I'm not opposed to removing my tags and support of the flags for cabalism13 and bl4nkcode assuming they satisfactorily provide data or answers.

[Timelord2067]

Seeing as crwth is keen to answer questions, here's one that's remained unanswered for a while:

theyoungmillionaire  apparently has made some fiat to btc deals with user https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=914465 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1179651   on the forum in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113147.msg49868494#msg49868494

Considering that fiat was involved you might get some leeds on his identity.

[crwth]

@crwth, Didn't you know what's going on with the charity fund, escrow contract wasn't in its way & if any corruption on going? Did you know anything? If yes, why didn't you alert the community about it? Don't you think you should share with the community about things that are not going accordingly? It's great that you have provided some documents which are real; to me it's real.

I don't know anything when it comes to decisions of the funds. All I'm focused on is the funds allocated to me and making sure that activities were done.

Okay, let's look at it this way:  (these receipts aren't on the spreadsheet posted just above BTW)

I don't think you have looked at the spreadsheet enough. It's there with a link.

Three scrunched up receipts from eleven months ago.  Two are hand written with no contact details and a vague letter "C" as if that's supposed to explain all.

A lot of businesses here in our country do it like that.

Then receipt 0367 in image three has the wording: This document is not valid for claim of input taxes."

Did it occur to you on reading (the tax disclaimer) that you might run into difficulties later on down the track if there were an audit of your expenditure?

Probably the business is non-VAT or something.

For the other 2 receipts: can you specify what it was for?

The second one is for the bags for the contents of the goods to be in for distribution. 2nd one is the lunch meal that we had before the distribution of the goods in different locations.

I'm curious: what's your opinion (now) on the way cabalism13 and bL4nkcode handled this?

I think it could've been handled better.

Seeing as crwth is keen to answer questions, here's one that's remained unanswered for a while:

How can you say it's unanswered? DireWolfM14 has contacted me with this long before and I did help him with what I could provide.

[Timelord2067]

it's an online wallet that both crewth and cabalism13 use

I don't think it's a secret many Filipinos use coins.ph.

True...

However...

About coins.ph
You can actually view and read the faqs of coins.ph,
https://support.coins.ph/hc/en-us/articles/360000012161-Which-IDs-are-accepted-for-the-ID-verification-process-
And it is stated there that we need a Valid ID (which is very hard to get especially here in the PH) to be able to transact in coins.ph. Meaning that every BTC address on coins.ph, there's only 1 user and it's validated.

https://support.coins.ph/hc/en-us/articles/115000162741-What-is-Coins-ph-and-how-does-it-work-
And if you don't trust the platform that we're using, it is stated here that;

Coins.ph is the first virtual currency provider in the Philippines to be licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) with a Virtual Currency Exchange license. Using your wallet, you can easily convert your Pesos into Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, or Ethereum.

Three wallet addresses, two users, one exchange - as identified by @RapTarX [here]

[DireWolfM14]

Seeing as crwth is keen to answer questions, here's one that's remained unanswered for a while:
~

Kind of disingenuous to bring that up.  If you were paying attention I had asked that potentially identifying information (and therefore, potentially misidentifying information,) be sent to me in personal message, and not posted in public.  And as crwth indicated, he did indeed share what he could.

Not to mention, continued attempts to link this issue with the two loan scammers isn't really helpful and it's off-topic.  The only similarity is the people's ethnicity/nationality.  Other than that, I haven't seen any connection between these three individuals and the two scammers.

[Timelord2067]

Not to mention, continued attempts to link this issue with the two loan scammers isn't really helpful

Noted.

and it's off-topic.

Hmm... I won't ask yahoo62278 (the OP of this thread) what he thinks is on topic in his thread...

The only similarity is the people's ethnicity/nationality.

Of which I made no mention.

[yahoo62278]

Not to mention, continued attempts to link this issue with the two loan scammers isn't really helpful

Noted.

and it's off-topic.

Hmm... I won't ask yahoo62278 (the OP of this thread) what he thinks is on topic in his thread...

The only similarity is the people's ethnicity/nationality.

Of which I made no mention.

Without proof why bring it up? The topic deals with the charity, not their possible alts. Save that for your thread.