A discussion about the validity of the campaign to strangers

Jody Burley

don't know how people feel about this but thought I'd throw it out there: A few people I've spoken to about donating have said that they would be unsure about making a donation if they didn't know me because of the payment method- eg. straight into a bank. Their point is that anything with bank details on the internet smacks of a scam. Thought I'd share this, we could put another vid out with 'just giving' site on? What do you think Neil?

 ·  ·  · 4 hours ago

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    Tracy Cosgrove well its very easy these days to use Google !! . If they think its a scam it will quickly show up as a scam .. Also to be honest i think many people will use any excuse sometimes not to help. there is enough out there with all the press to show this is Not a scam .. Thats my opinion ..
    

    3 hours ago ·  · 3
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    Neil Clappison Tracy is exactly right. This was more of a problem in the early days, for obvious reasons. We've already thought hard about a solution, & there isn't one. After careful consideration we even requested a photo of Adam in hospital as we knew it would tug heart-strings more (this was politely declined & in retrospect not what Adam would want). But even a photo wouldn't really prove anything these days. So what do we do?I'd say to any doubters, if you're not sure about it, as Tracy said, research it. Look online, if it were a scam it would be busted by now. Also if it were a scam, just have a think about the logistics of pulling it off!
    

    3 hours ago ·  · 1
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    Deborah Philbrook Also you can't just set up 'just giving', you have to be a registered charity. Use PayPal if you don't want to do a bank transfer. I did.
    

    3 hours ago via Mobile ·  · 2
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    Neil Clappison Correct. We even looked at becoming a registered charity & we can't because we're helping an individual & not a group of people. There would have also been a time issue with admin etc
    

    3 hours ago ·  · 1
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    Neil Clappison Thanks for raising the issue though Jody, it's one that's bound to come up regularly. The straight answer to give to anyone now is - we're nearly 3 weeks into this campaign, if it was a scam we'd have run off with the cash by now! Also by name is all over the internet, newspapers etc, I'd probably be in jail by now too!
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Danielle Nicholls There's the paypal option for people who genuinely want to give.
    

    3 hours ago via Mobile ·  · 1
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    Robert Johnson Paypal is safe and if anyone did get caught out [elsewhere] by a scam, then paypal would put the money back where it came from as part of their security protocols. I do understand the initial comment though and for a fraction of a second [0.000004 of a second] did go down that track, but then thought no, this is important, this is a fellow teacher, a fellow human being in need of my assistance, and so, donated what I could. Be assured peeps that paypal is secure and safe. I use it all the time. On the other hand, I did set up a JUST GIVING page for my wife as she is doing a parachute jump in August 2012 for Help for Heroes. It was easy to set up.
    

    3 hours ago ·  · 2
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    Neil Clappison trying again now...
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Robert Johnson I will add our link below that may assist you, or not, as the case may be.
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Robert Johnson http://www.justgiving.com/VANESSA-JOHNSON2
    

    
    

    VANESSA'S DOING A PARACHUTE JUMP FOR HELP FOR HEROES

    www.justgiving.com
    

    VANESSA JOHNSON is fundraising for Help for Heroes

    
    

    3 hours ago ·  · 
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    Katie Jones I have had an email from Just Giving confirming we can't do it.
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Robert Johnson Hmmm I do seem to remember you have to pick from a choice of charities to donate to now, but as we were looking for HFH anyhow it was straightforward. To be honest, paypal is fantastically safe so that should suffice.
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Neil Clappison Yep, i've just tried again & no, we can't. Happy to be proved wrong though...
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Neil Clappison Robert your wife did the jump for the charity Help for Heroes
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Neil Clappison So it seems PayPal is our failsafe for any doubters who are not convinced by the thousands of people on here that know Adam and have written about him, by the people on here that live & work with him in Thailand, visit him in hospital, put on events, have a full school event dedicated to him, by the hospital invoices that I have put on this site, by the local & national press in the UK that have picked the story up, by the Members of Parliament that have become involved...& if they're still not convinced, just tell them to stop wasting our time & they should probably start looking at some personal development classes
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Robert Johnson She does the jump on 22 August this year. And yes, we had to select a charity when setting up the page. I do not understand why the justgiving site does not allow payments to such as this though. Ah well, paypal it is then. Good ole faithful paypal.
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Katie Jones ps. paypal do check things out too. They do loads of anti-fraud checks along the way and check specific payments if they are large. believe me - we've overcome all this over the last few weeks - nothing is easy x
    

    3 hours ago · 
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    Julian Farrell Neil-- apart from all those events and reasons for trusting.... what have the Romans ever done for us?
    

    2 hours ago ·  · 3
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    Robert Johnson No comment Julian. But yes, every financial organisation has to conduct ML [Money Laundering] checks if over a certain amount, I believe it is 500GBP but not sure. Used to have to do all that when working for Aviva.
    

    57 minutes ago ·