On a lesser scale than others but Jo Solomon from No Verbal Filter.
It was a fundraiser via PayPal rather than GoFundMe because she said PayPal took a smaller cut but the principle is the same.
Her cat was shot and had an air rifle pellet stuck in its shoulder. Jo said she would need major surgery requiring the shoulder to be fused or quite possibly amputation of the leg.
It happened three weeks after she spent almost £15,000 on a new horse lorry, she said she had no savings left, claimed she felt awkward and embarrassed to ask for help but set up a fundraiser which raised over £4000 plus she had some direct donations to her bank account. She actually hit the target within three hours of setting it up and lots of people said she should take it down but she left it up for ages citing "technical difficulties" and got a lot more donations in that time.
In fact its the second time she has done a fundraiser, the first one was a GoFundMe for her horse to have an op on its eye as it had cancer, she even went to the local paper about it.
If any of you follow NVF you will know that Jo is obsessed with money, begs and drops hints constantly about how hard her life is and all the things she wants as well as putting expensive items on her wishlist so the pretence of being embarrassed was purely for show and she could have just sold the lorry again to get the money needed.
The cat made a "miraculous recovery" and she announced within days no surgery was needed, it soon became clear that the second Jo realised that the injury was potentially serious she saw pound signs and set up the fundraiser rather than waiting for the specialist vet to examine the cat and give her verdict on wether surgery would be required which the first vet had told her would be the next step.
People suggested donating the money to a charity, some asked for their money back but Jo just deleted their comments and blocked them. Some did say that they didn't want their money back and Jo said she would use it for the horses vets bills. Again if you know Jo you know that her animals live in disgusting unsafe conditions and rarely get the care they need because Jo thinks she knows better than vets and other professionals.
She talks about the "hate from trolls" she got over the GoFundMe a lot, still insists she refunded money to those who asked and says the vet is amazed that the cat made a full recovery without surgery.
She desperately wanted to set up another fundraiser last year for another of her horses but said she didn't dare because of all the hate she got last time. If she really needs money she should sell the posh horse lorry that has hardly ever transported her horses and is mostly used to pick up hay and dump rubbish!
I don't think it will be the last fundraiser she ever does sadly.
