Fake crowdsourcing upsets Sask. family battling cancer
Fake campaigns a growing trend: Moose Jaw police
Two Moose Jaw parents thought they were in the clear after their two-month-old baby had successfully recovered from eye surgery, until they found several fake crowdfunding accounts trying to profit off their infant's sickness, and steal donations intended for him.
Soon after their child's birth, Chelsey and Michael Bellefeuille noticed a white glare in their son's right eye.
"It was kind of a whirlwind. One week we were at home having a happy baby and with a happy life, and the next it was turned upside down," Chelsey said of her son, Tyce. "I never thought he'd be having cancer at two months."
Soon after, he was diagnosed with retinalblastoma, a cancerous growth on his retina.
"We kind of felt numb. That's the best way of putting it," Michael said.
After a rushed trip to Toronto and urgent surgery to remove Tyce's eye, the parents were overjoyed with their son's courage and successful recovery.
That's when they came across the fake crowdfunding pages using Tyce's picture and story from his real GoFundMe page.
"Seeing the fake accounts was pretty devastating [to know] that somebody would prey on someone else's misfortune," Tyce's mom said.
Fake sites hard to shut down
Moose Jaw police say the trend of fake accounts is only growing, and shutting them down is a problem too.
"These types of activities begin basically international or worldwide so it is very difficult to investigate this type of activity," said Sgt. Cliff Froehlich.
He added that monitoring activity should also fall on the shoulders of the website administrators.
In the meantime, the Bellefeuille family says it's reporting the false pages as they find them. Although, some of the pages have already managed to syphon off some of the donation money intended for Tyce.
The false accounts are still up, and can be viewed, but their donating functions have been disabled.
