Do people use fundraising websites inappropriately?

Snuggles fraudulent fund raising
SNUGGLES — Does she scratch herself to he point where it is life threatening?
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

When it comes to cats there are lots of pleas for funds. The fundraising website is growing in popularity. Anyone can post a fundraiser.  I don’t want to be cynical about this but…we cannot make the assumption that every request for funds on one of the many fundraising websites is genuine.

These sites get a hell of a lot of visitors. Millions per day some of them. The website, itself, has to be funded. It probably takes a proportion of the donations. That encourages a website to have lax controls. Cats are very popular on the internet. Cats are more popular on the internet than in real life!

What made me think this dark thought was the request for donations to “Save Snuggles”. Snuggles is a sweet looking long haired calico cat who scratches herself.

The cat’s caretaker, Beth Kululu Berryman, states that she wants funding to declaw Snuggles because it is the only way to save her life. Here is part of the request, verbatim:

I am honestly begging for your help in possibly saving her life. For reasons we have been unable to determine since I found her 2 years ago, Snuggles will scratch at her skin until it is raw..

Sorry, I have great difficulty in believing this because it is so stupid and using “declawing” makes it very emotive. It does not make sense. If a cat is scratching herself you take her to the vet and diagnose the reason, which will be itchy skin caused by an illness such as a flea bite allergy (a typical reason but one of many).

As a cat caretaker you don’t hold your hands up in despair on the internet and ask for money to declaw your cat!

Bizarre — and for me unbelievable. Think about it. It is so easy to post a picture of a sweet cat and plead for money. Where is the evidence? Don’t get me wrong. I am sure most requests for money are genuine. You can normally tell. However, there has to be a proportion of fraudulent requests. The Snuggles campaign seems to me to be one.

There is a lot of fraudulent behavior on the internet. Beware.

Note: I could be wrong about Snuggles. Of course. But if I am wrong then Beth is stupid. Sorry Beth.

Original article/request for a donation.

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38 thoughts on “Do people use fundraising websites inappropriately?”

  1. This is so sad. I can’t believe that this person is thinking of doing this to her poor sweet cat. If this is real and she does want to help her cat, then she should use the money to get her tested and helped for the real problem, which could be allergies or something else. Declawing won’t solve the problem. It might even cause problems much worse than what she’s dealing with now.

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