In the days since the Lapu Lapu festival tragedy, where 11 people were killed when an SUV drove into a crowd of people, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated to victims and their families.
GoFundMe has been verifying fundraisers to make sure the donated funds will benefit grieving family members and aid in recovery efforts.
However, one fundraiser caught the eye of a Vancouver Filipino resident and she thought something didn’t seem right.
Raquel Narraway said she was devastated to hear what happened at the Lapu Lapu festival on April 26.
“I think it’s (an) understatement to say that because it’s my community,” she told Global News.
Narraway was not at the festival but is heavily involved in the Filipino community.
“Every time something happens in (the) Filipino community, in the Philippines, or in Canada, or even in the Canadian community, I always want to do something. It’s just in my nature.”
She wanted to compile all the GoFundMe pages on her Facebook so people can find them easily to donate.
However, there was one GoFundMe that had received a lot of donations but it was not on the verified list.
Before Narraway shared the post, she decided to ask other Filipino groups on Facebook if anyone knew the people.
“I already searched them on social media, and nothing came out,” she said. “So, like, huh, this is very suspicious.”
Narraway said that the names associated with the fundraiser are not Filipino names but she still didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
“I promised myself that if it turns out that I am wrong, that they are legit, then I’m going to donate as well,” she said, “because I have done a lot of fundraising in the past as well, and I have started like GoFundMe myself for a lot of people.”
She said she was hoping it wasn’t a scam, but after her Facebook post, she found out it was.
Narraway said that someone commented on her post saying they knew the person in the picture. They asked that person to comment on Narraway’s post and she did saying she was not involved in the Lapu Lapu festival and that someone was using her picture fraudulently.
As it turns out, that person lives in Las Vegas and some of the photos used were on this person’s profile.
Narraway added that she’s happy she was able to help people avoid donating to a campaign where the money wasn’t going to help a victim and she also helped people ask for a refund if they had previously donated.
“I have chatted with GoFundMe today because I am really worried that the people who donated are not going to get their money back,” she said.
“So they assured me that if the fundraising is proven fraudulent, they will return the money automatically, but they couldn’t tell me what’s the status of the investigation now.”
On Wednesday afternoon, GoFundMe confirmed that the fundraiser has been removed from the platform, all donations have been refunded, and the organizer has been banned from any future fundraising.
“At no point did the organizer have access to the funds,” a spokesperson stated.
“GoFundMe has zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform and takes swift action against those who seek to take advantage of the generosity of our community.”
The spokesperson stated that the organization will work with law enforcement when its platform is misused.
Desmond Reid who works in one of the nearby schools and came to the memorial at East 41st Avenue and Fraser Street on Wednesday said it doesn’t surprise him someone might try to capitalize on the tragedy but people need to focus on the good.
“We stand with the Filipino community and again, I’m just proud to be Canadian,” he said.
Mark Dizon, who came to the memorial on Wednesday, said it’s terrible that people would try to make money in a situation where people are grieving and loved ones lost.
“I saw it through an Instagram story where someone said don’t donate, this is a scam, but a lot of people had already donated,” he said.