Crowdfunding has become a major instrument of fundraising for a variety of reasons, including in times of disturbance. Nevertheless, not all crowdfunding projects are sincere or disclose all the information. However, there have been undeserved individuals who utilise the demise of the Non-resident immigrants (NRI) to collect money which is either fake or misleading by opening fake or dummy pages.
Based on a Time of India documentation, most families of Indian citizens who died abroad, primarily in the US, were made to pay high fees by certain ‘agents’ and intermediaries who were to facilitate the repatriation of the corps. These ‘middlemen’ who have no heart will normally start a crowdfunding site for collecting the public’s donations but might scandalously pocket the whole amount or give only a small part of it to the bereaved family.
The report attributed these cases to several instances when the families received amounts returned via the crowdsourced-web platforms more than the funds raised. Somethime, the riches were not needed by the families and instead, was offered by social organizations or the deceased person’s employers. What appears particularly is that such fraudulent activity goes unchecked and unpunished as a result that the report points out the insufficient observation of crowdfunding platforms, which leads to these frauds.
The report warns the people to be cautious and vigilant while donating online. That is why it recommends people to clarify the nature of the campaign organizers. Additionally it implies that it is government and the crowdfunding sites responsibility to draw on some measures to curb this and ensure accountability as well as transparency.
