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Fundraising Section Rules

If the forum rules had been followed Maggies scam would not have been allowed, she hadn't permission to start a thread from admin/mods or from the rescue itself.

Even with the rules in place it wouldn't have stopped the other possible scam with the raffle for a run - he had been a member for a few months and had over 150 posts also a lot of people had placed orders for hutches and runs from him, so there was no need to suspect he would try to scam members.

I think we all have to take responsibility for parting with our money when supporting fundraisers, if you haven't heard of someone check their previous posts, if they're new then question as to why they would start fundraising, check with the rescue yourself, if in doubt keep your money in your pocket.

Finally if you are really suspicious like me, then you should have emailed Forsham Cottage Arks, who said "we have not sold one recently to anyone to our knowledge that is offering it as a prize" - they do have other outlets around the country, however, I assume they would be retail and wouldn't be able to sell one at a huge discount as Maggie had claimed she had bought it for:?

So as someone said if it looks too good to be true it probably is;)
 
Interestingly enough, there's a Maggie Thomas and a notthenormalone on ebay - both living in the USA. There's also a Maggie Thomas from the USA registered with the complaints board as being a scammer :roll:

Sorry that people lost their money but common sense needs to prevail here and everyone needs to keep their wits about them just as much on here as they would do if someone approached them in the street.

How many raffles have people entered before without personally knowing the winner ? These sorts of things are always open to fraud and scammers I'm afraid
 
Yes, if you want to provide us with a list in advance of people with permission to collect on your behalf I don't see a problem with that - it would speed things up all round. You can now post in fundraising directly (like starting any topic), but the post won't appear until a mod has read it. If you are part of the rescue/on the list then it's just a simple case of the mod ticking the box to approve the post.

Thanks tamsin. We shall put our heads together and come up with the list.
 
If the forum rules had been followed Maggies scam would not have been allowed, she hadn't permission to start a thread from admin/mods or from the rescue itself.

thing is though it WAS approved by mods, in spite of all suspicions about it.

'maggie' sent £145 to wood green, but did she keep £30 or £40? Nobody knows.

And certainly after the thread had been approved by mods and reopened, she stole at least £50 or £60 from members who were only too anxious to prove that they had never doubted her in the first place - I think it was actually quite good publicity for her to have her word doubted as there was a flurry of sales as soon as the thread was reopened.
 
The suspicion was she was stealing peoples cash not giving it to charity, that was proved false. Suspicions are great but we all know the forum can turn into a mob and judge people with no basis in fact.
 
The suspicion was she was stealing peoples cash not giving it to charity, that was proved false. Suspicions are great but we all know the forum can turn into a mob and judge people with no basis in fact.

it was actually proved to be correct though after the raffle was re-opened, when she vanished taking the remaining raffle money for herself, and not donating it as promised! My point being that the 2nd half of the raffle HAD been approved by mods, and yet she stole the money.

Or did she make a 2nd donation to Wood Green that I've not heard of? I thought it was just the one she made in order to get the thread open again?
 
thing is though it WAS approved by mods, in spite of all suspicions about it.

'maggie' sent £145 to wood green, but did she keep £30 or £40? Nobody knows.

And certainly after the thread had been approved by mods and reopened, she stole at least £50 or £60 from members who were only too anxious to prove that they had never doubted her in the first place - I think it was actually quite good publicity for her to have her word doubted as there was a flurry of sales as soon as the thread was reopened.

It was only approved after the confirmation of the £145 going to the rescue, what would have happened if it had remained locked, people would still have lost their money, as they couldn't claim it back through paypal:? There were sales after the thread was reopened, but I don't think she got as much as she anticipated, I think a lot of people had been put off, we will never know how much she did take, as probably not everyone put their names on the thread.
 
She hasn't 'vanished', we are still exchanging messages over what should happen at this point.


One option would be to insist that everyone collecting money uses a verified paypal account. That means paypal have verified their address/bank account.
 
Interestingly enough, there's a Maggie Thomas and a notthenormalone on ebay - both living in the USA. There's also a Maggie Thomas from the USA registered with the complaints board as being a scammer :roll:
maggie thomas was registered with the complaints board for having a complaint, not for being the subject of one
 
I am guessing no-one has heard from "thenotnormalone" to see if she received her prize? :wave:

I dont think so ... I guess she was so overwhelmed with her luck of winning shes never come back!!! :lol:

Anyways we better not start this again as this is a wholllleeee new thread about rules... :D

Im glad something is being done in light of it anyway - I think 100 posts is a good idea! (and maybe being a member for 3 months or something like that) as you could soon notch up 100 posts (well I could anyway :lol:)
 
There's no connection/reason to believe that any other Maggie out there is the same as the one on this forum, I think that digression isn't of any help as far as this forum is concerned, Sorry.
 
One option would be to insist that everyone collecting money uses a verified paypal account. That means paypal have verified their address/bank account.

Thats a good idea, at least it adds another layer of protection, and isn't too hard to achieve.
 
There's no connection/reason to believe that any other Maggie out there is the same as the one on this forum, I think that digression isn't of any help as far as this forum is concerned, Sorry.

sorry I didn't really make my point, I just felt like the name had been found so it had been assumed she was bad news without actually reading what it said. :s
 
Thats a good idea, at least it adds another layer of protection, and isn't too hard to achieve.

Again most people who are genuine will have a verified paypal account:D

I hadn't realised how many rescues visited the forum, and a lot of the ones I have spoken to have very little spare time to organise fundraisers for themselves, they have to work to support their rescues, and spend their time caring for the rabbits as well as all the usual things such as vet trips, homechecks etc so they need the help of others to help raise funds.

As far as I'm aware there haven't been that many problems in the past, and if things are made too difficult the rescues are the ones that will suffer - people will be put off organising fundraisers:cry: I have very little spare time - in fact my spare time is spent knitting for fundraisers:D:lol:

Hopefully, we've all learned from recent events, and we will all be more careful which is probably the best rule to follow:D
 
She hasn't 'vanished', we are still exchanging messages over what should happen at this point.
.

Tamsin....this person has comitted a crime it would seem - 'she' may have sent SOME monies to wood green, but as I mentioned before, unless there's been another donation from 'her', of monies collected AFTER the raffle was reopened by you, she has commited fraud, which is a criminal offence, even if the amounts she's stolen from people is just a few £'s per person.

Even if all the money is given to wood green, she has still run a raffle with a non-existent 'prize' and defrauded forum members of their cash.

If you are in touch with this person Tamsin, and have not reported her to the authorities, then you are actually in danger of becoming an accessory to the crime - I quote from wiki;
A person with such knowledge may become an accessory by helping or encouraging the criminal in some way, or simply by failing to report the crime to proper authority. The assistance to the criminal may be of any type, including emotional or financial assistance as well as physical assistance or concealment

I'm quite concerned that you're in touch with 'maggie' really - what she's done is not negotiable surely - it's a crime.
 
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