اردو | فارسی | English

Waqar Ahmed

Patreon

‘Send Me Money Bro’: Many Gaza GoFundMe Are Scams

Scammers are using media of Gaza genocide victims to run fake GoFundMe and BuyMeACoffee pages for donations.

5 mins read

Child victims of Israeli Famine in Gaza
Innocent children are victims of Israel's famine in Gaza. Pictures like these are evidence that charity works (UN charity), but there are hundreds of scammers out there who set up fake charity pages to steal money. Credit: UN World Food Programme.

There’s a special place in hell for Zionists, but there’s a filthier floor below for grifters stealing money meant for genocide victims. I don’t know who these people are, or where they’re from. I only know that they’re shameless and need to be stopped.

They use pictures and videos of Gaza – of her bloodied children weeping and sleeping in tents, to scam unwitting people out of their money. Their victims are kind-hearted folks (mostly from the West) who see this disturbing media and want to make a difference in the world.

These swindlers make fake pages on platforms like BuyMeACoffee and GoFundMe and share them widely (using bots?) on Twitter and Instagram.

Read More: Killed By Who? How Western Media Hides Israeli War Crimes, Pt.1

Join the Fight Against Imperialism

Evidence-based reports, podcasts and travel insights from the frontlines of resistance.

    Unsubscribe at any time. Continue reading the report below.

    Built with Kit

    ‘Help in my link, Bro’

    I’m going to share a bunch of examples. Keep in mind there are thousands of these fake accounts. They change names and location to avoid detection.

    The only tell-tale sign of their swindling is the lack of any human content. They are marketed as personal ‘campaigns’ to flee to Egypt but use stolen or downright AI-generated pictures to pull the heartstrings of people who want to help the real victims.

    This Twitter-verified account reached out to me for help. “Hellp bro”, it pleaded. The account holder is collecting money to fund her ‘children’ but has the money to (how? what payment method?) pay for Twitter premium. See the next picture for evidence.
    The scammer took the picture (bottom-right) from an Instagram page and added a blur filter to avoid detection. This campaign alone has raised over $1000 that should have gone to Gazan victims.

    ‘Save the children, Bro’

    No website, no proof of concept, no video / image proof of donation activities. Nothing. These lazy scams only repost media from actual Gazan journalists and run their name over it.

    There are hundreds of charity pages like this one. They use charity-sounding names like ‘Helping Hands‘ but they only exist on Twitter / Tumblr / Instagram. No connection to Gaza whatsoever.

    Another BuyMeACoffee campaign that spends the entire day retweeting and replying to other people’s posts. There is absolutely no proof of the existence of this person. Hundreds of pages like these exist.

    ‘We are the People of Gaza, Bro’

    A donation page for an organisation that has zero name or presence. The page uses AI art and reposts pictures of the Gazan genocide. People donate to these pages thinking that they are legitimate charity groups.
    This person posts random pictures of Gaza claiming they are of her family. Their account is registered in Turkey, GoFundMe is registered in England. Every displacement picture shows a different car and family. Claims her father died after 7th Oct, but her glamorous Instagram blog (now cleared of Gazan material) mentions he died 4 years ago. Inconsistency everywhere.
    Tumblr communities have started spreading awareness about scammers who pose as Gaza victims to swindle money. They copy-paste the same message and change their names.

    Real GoFundMes Do Exist

    If you’re looking to help the people of Palestine, the ones you see crying and wailing on your Twitter and Instagram feeds, the best is to donate to credible charities like one of the United Nations agencies, Palestine Red Crescent Society, or the World Central Kitchen (to name a few). But I’ll admit that many people tend to fall through the cracks of these safety nets.

    Read More: Illegals & Terrorists: What CIA said of Israel’s Irgun (Bibi’s Party) in 1944

    And that’s where individual campaigns on GoFundMe and BuyMeACoffee come in. Do not fall for anyone who messages you personally, even if they have pictures and videos of themselves. While there are real people wanting help, the scammers are smarter than you and them.

    There are independent vetting groups like Paliliberation and The Butterfly Effect who personally interact with people asking for donations to vet their authenticity. These groups run spreadsheets where they monitor the campaigns to make sure there’s no abuse or scamming. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s better than sending money to random scammers and bots.

    I reached out to one of the largest online Palestine community on Discord, to their people responsible for vetting GoFundMe pages. Here’s some incredibly useful advice if you insist on vetting a campaign yourself.

    We try our best with verifying them, there isn’t a best method. It’s important to be able to speak to them in Arabic and preferably Palestinian dialect to sus out the accent.

    They can share a picture of them in gaza doing a specific hand sign or even a video of them talking about the campaign and addressing you. It’s important to get in touch with the person that created the campaign as well and to know about how they’re related to the people that need the funding.

    Advice from the Palestine community discord.

    Remember that real Palestinians will know and speak the Palestinian dialect. Arabic isn’t a monolithic or single language – people from North Africa or Gulf will speak in a different dialect than Palestinian Arabic. Unless you know the difference, it’ll be incredibly hard for you to tell them apart. ChatGPT can easily write Arabic for texts on social media to send the impression of being a Palestinian.

    Read More: How Israel grooms its children to Hate Arabs & raise IDF fanatics

    All this effort isn’t worth it in the end. You’re donating your hard-earned money to a worthy cause, not to junkies looking to buy a new video game. I’d advice that you stick to credible charities that have the pull to really help the people of Gaza and Lebanon.

    Please follow me on Twitter / X to stay updated with my publications.

    Support me from $3/mo

    The West kills millions of innocents and children, and then calls their corpses ‘terrorists’. Their media hides the evidence.

    I’m an investigative journalist who digs out that evidence. Get exclusive survivor interviews, podcasts, and credible reports you won’t find elsewhere.

    Patreon

    Support independent, grassroots journalism