Back in December of 2014, about a month after the GoFundMe was launched, Nurse Tom had posted a warning on Facebook — on

GoFundMe provides potential donors a short list of red flags to look out for so they can suss out scams. One of the items asks, “Are direct friends and family making donations and leaving supportive comments?” The checklist suggests that contributions from friends and family can help demonstrate that a cause is legitimate.

It was in mid-March that Cindy’s caregiver took to Facebook to announce that one of Cindy’s friends, in a spectacularly loving and shocking gesture, sold his home to help keep Cindy alive. The price of the house was never disclosed, but it was, according to Cindy’s nurse Chris, reduced to sell “against the advice of his real estate agent.” If this kind of generosity didn’t motivate others to give until it hurt, what would?

I had been a periodic user of Facebook for years — occasionally spying on old boyfriends, joining but rarely participating in professional development groups, and counting how many people wished me happy birthday.

But when Cindy got sick, I found myself glued to the platform. Every morning in late 2014 and early 2015, I made myself coffee and looked for news about her condition. Cindy was so sick that she was in total seclusion, so the only way to check in on her was to log on. Because of that, a growing online community flourished. And everyone, it seemed, was eager for Cindy to get better and return to the lovable goofball they were so devoted to, the class ham I had occasionally shared a bench with in gym class.

Despite all that support, it appeared as if Cindy was losing her battle with CIDP. Cindy’s home nurses — three men named Tom, Chris, and Jeff who never appeared in photos or seemed to have their own social media profiles — took over her Facebook account to update Cindy’s friends on her condition, alternating desperate pleas for help with small, endearing details of Cindy’s new normal.

There have been a number of high-profile scams. In a 2017 incident, a couple in New Jersey raised $400,000 to ostensibly benefit a generous homeless veteran who had given a woman his last $20 when she ran out of gas. It turned out that the entire narrative had been concocted by the trio after they met outside a casino, and the scam unraveled when the veteran complained he’d received only a small portion of the funds.

Some scammers have started crowdfunding campaigns in the names of other people’s dead children; others have wrongly claimed that their own children are sick or dead. At times, these scams have cast shade on the whole crowdfunding industry.

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e (May 20, 1808 — September 19, 1860), known professionally as Daddy Rice, was an American performer and playwright who performed blackface and used African American vernacular speech, song and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time. He is considered the “father of American minstrelsy”. His act drew on aspects of African American culture and popularized them with a national, and later international, audience.

The temptation to scam on crowdfunding platforms is undeniable. For one, it’s much harder to arbitrate the validity of someone’s need over the internet than if you’re sitting in a living room together. “Going to an emergency room and pretending to have a heart attack comes with all sorts of traps, but if you say it online, you’re just misleading other people and that’s easy enough to do,” says Marc Feldman, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Alabama and author of the book Dying to Be Ill: True Stories of Medical Deception. “There’s really no acting involved when you do it exclusively online.”

A series of fundraising events were organized, including a bottle drive and “an evening of fun and laughter” comedy show at a nightclub close to the indoor roller rink that was central to my early adolescence. The “Help Save Cindy’s Life” page on Facebook had a “shop now” option, where well-wishers could purchase donated goods, like handmade beaded necklaces or a half-hour reflexology session.

In turn, platforms like GoFundMe (which has, in recent years, gobbled up competitors like GiveForward and CrowdRise) have come under increased scrutiny. GoFundMe has introduced a trust and safety team, which includes former members of law enforcement whose full-time job is to sniff out fraudulent requests and spoof copycat campaigns. The company pledges that all donors will be fully refunded if their donations are misdirected.

Through Facebook, I learned that Cindy’s valiant fight with CIDP actually started three years earlier. Since 2011, she had been suffering largely in silence, her escalating symptoms unknown to those closest to her until the situation suddenly became dire.

At over CA$7,000 a week Cindy’s medications were exorbitantly expensive. If this treatment regimen could somehow tip Cindy into remission, one of Cindy’s emissaries explained, then she would become a candidate for a stem cell transplant that would save her life. But the cost of the medications was a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the stem cell transplant, tentatively organized in partnership with an American hospital at a price of CA$500,000.

Cindy and her hundreds of supporters took advantage of a number of online tools to raise money. A garage sale was organized through snapd, a platform for community events. In periodic YouTube videos, Cindy displayed the generous gifts friends donated and the medical equipment she was able to buy. In addition to GoFundMe and Facebook, the support group — which included friends, acquaintances, some of Cindy’s family members, and other more distant connections sucked into her orbit — turned to 32auctions.com to sell donated items, including a “Niagara Falls Getaway,” a “Pampered pooch deluxe kit” (including a dog bed and organic treats), and costume jewelry. Almost all of the items sold, and, in a reunion of sorts, I watched as old classmates I’d long ago forgotten emerge to claim them.

Raising such an enormous sum seemed like an incredibly steep hill to climb, but Cindy’s supporters were determined, and organized. A woman named Hilary, Cindy’s best friend of many years, led the fundraising charge, drawing on her intimate knowledge of Cindy to inspire others. “Cindy is truly one of a kind, with a heart that is bigger than this world!,” Hilary wrote on the GoFundMe campaign. “She will do whatever she can, with the resources she has to help others. She is always paying it forward, to family, friends and her community. She is passionate about human rights and equality, never afraid to stand up for what’s right. With her incredible sense of humor, determination and love for everyone, Cindy has gained the love ad [sic] respect of many and always leaves a lasting impression wherever she goes!”