A man who wanted to donate money on a GoFundMe account to help a woman he has never met, mistakenly donated more than he intended.
72-year-old retired Jim Houck, clicked on a GoFundMe account of a woman who lives more than 1,400 miles away from him, intending to donate $15, but he donated $15,787.
Narrating his experience, he said, "My first thought was, "This didn't happen", he said immediately he realised his mistake, few days after making the donation. "Then it was, "How could this possibly happen?"
His donation was made to Isata Jalloh, in the picture above, a woman who was sacked unfairly from her job of pushing wheelchairs at Dulles Intenational Airport because she was suspected of asking for a tip. She was worried about how she was going to send money to her children at Sierra Leone and also pay her house rent in Herndon, Virginia.
Jim contacted GoFundMe's customer representatives (also called the Customer Happiness Team) when he realised that he donated more than he intended, one of the representatives told him that: "As for the $15,787 donation, it is not currently available in our system to refund right away"
He was given three options: "1. You can reach out to the campaign organiser to see if they can refund you directly. 2. You may be able to contact your bank credit card company to dispute the charge for your donation, 3. I can personally reach out to the campaign organiser and the issue the refund for you as soon as they reply with their confirmation"
He tried all the three options. He sent a mail to Isata Jalloh with the hope that she would understand and refund his money. He contacted his credit card company and they told him that he could only dispute the charges once they cleared, so he waited for a few days until they did.
Jim revealed that he asked a customer services representative named Mary, to send an email. Days passed and he did not get any feedback. He sent another email to the company to see if there any updates, but there weren't any.
Isata did not have a computer, so it took a long process, and, the GoFudMe account was set up by people who wanted to help her. After some days, they sifted through more than 700 mails and finally found Jim's donation. Isata decided to refund Jim's money from over $45,000 she made from the campaign.
According to a GoFundMe spokesperson, 'Mistakes with donations are rare occurence but can happen. This is an extremely rare situation, and if a mistake, big or small, does occur, the donor will usually recognize it quickly and reach out to our Happiness team for assistance. We are working with the donor and the beneficiary to correct this issue and get the donor his money back.”
Jim recently said that he has heard from the people helping Jalloh, and, he expects to receive a check with a large portion of the funds.
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