A Very Curious GoFundMe
What do the words say?
There’s a story that’s been on many UK news sites this week. It’s about a couple of health workers who had their home robbed on Christmas Day. You can read the original report here.
On social media, some people felt there was something up. Some mentioned the fact the couple had set up a GoFundMe money raiser as suspicious.
What the words say
Can we tell what is going on from the words used? Examining their words in the news reports, I wasn’t certain. I can see signs of truthfulness, events are all reported in the past tense and the recounting of discovering the robbery is very straightforward. Both of these imply honesty.
The woman speaking to the press is at great pains to point out what good people they are, with numerous mentions of their jobs. This is either an attempt to gain sympathy, or it is because she’s feeling sorry for herself, that something bad happened to a good person.
She uses the word “property” three times in one spoken paragraph. The break-in could have removed her sense of “home” from where she lived, but it’s a very formal word to use, especially three times.
I do see a couple of red flags.
There are no specifics on what was stolen. No number of watches, no identification of the jewellery, no brands for the makeup and no amount for the cash in the safe.
There are a lot of words used to describe events before the discovery of the break-in. Even when they arrive home, she spends time describing getting out of the car before moving on to events inside the house.
When people are being deceptive about events they can spend a lot of time on areas they are comfortable with, delaying getting to when they are being deceptive as they know it will be stressful.
But
I will give the benefit of the doubt here. We aren’t privy to the questions that we’re asked to get the words, or even the order they were told in. When analysing news reports we’ve always got to bear in mind that reporters can change words, the order of words and omit their questions.
My conclusion on the press reports is; I see signs there was a burglary, I see some signs of deception but not enough for me to say the story is false. Without knowing the exact questions asked, and the words used, I can’t make the red flags stand up.
In their own words
Luckily, we do have the couple’s own words on their GoFundMe page:
As two health care assistants out at work on Christmas Day, we came home to a cold dark smashed home, where burglars have not only stolen a substantial amount of money and personal properties of high value including jewellery, make up and watches but they have also stolen our feeling of what you’d call a ‘safe’ home. It’s really taken the life out of us, especially when we have worked so hard throughout the pandemic also on the frontline as well as doing public service degrees and health and social care degrees to become helpful professionals within this cruel society.
we are very upset that we have had to create a go fund me page, but the invaders of our home have taken all sense of security from us, we’re just really wanting to try and get back to normality, work and doing what do best caring for others, we feel scared to leave the property as well as be in it, so please help us with any donations and we would be really grateful. The money which was stolen was for potential future IVF due to medical conditions, if it is needed, this makes the whole situation even more heartbreaking that someone could do this to us. Any donations would be so helpful, Thankyou from the bottom of our hearts,
I see plenty of red flags in this:
Almost everything I’ve spotted is designed to increase your feeling of sympathy for the couple. Again, they are at pains to get across what nice people they are, with community minded jobs.
“Degrees” is stated in the plural both times. It is mightily impressive to squeeze in four degrees in less than two years, as well as working.
Home was “cold dark smashed”. If your home was ransacked, you won’t care if it is cold, or if it is dark. Why do they come before “smashed”?
At the start, they refer to burglars in the plural, at the end they say “that SOMEONE could do this to us” in the singular. I found that interesting, why not say “that ANYONE could do this to us”?
The phrase “we’re just really wanting to try and get back to normality” is also fascinating. “We want to get back to normality” would be the most straightforward way of saying it. Why the extra words? Why do they only want to “try” to get back to normality?
Out of balance
If you compare the number of words used to make you feel sympathy with the number of words spent on facts, it’s massively biased to the former. There are few specifics. No mention of any specifics of what was stolen, and no mention of what they want the money for.
You get a sense in reading the words that they want the money to feel safe (maybe alarms and CCTV) and to replace the potential IVF money. But they don’t say that explicitly, so we shouldn’t assume it. Instead, we should ask why they haven’t been specific.
It intrigues me as to why they have included makeup in their list of “personal properties of high value”. People don’t generally consider makeup to be a property, it’s a consumable. And makeup can be expensive, but a high-value item? I don’t believe so.
I’ve contacted one of the couple to ask for specifics on what was taken and what the fund-raising money will be used for. At the time of writing, they haven’t replied.
What’s important?
Look at the order in “Please help us with any donations we would be really grateful”. Donations come first and gratitude comes later. This implies that donations are significant here. “We’d be grateful for any donations to help us” would sit much better with me.
One of my biggest guides is that people like to be honest as much as they can be. Here, they are very honest that the money stolen was only potentially going to be used for IVF treatment. At first, I thought that honesty was admirable, you’d get more sympathy, and potentially more donations, if you said it was definitely earmarked for IVF.
However, it also strikes me that, if the money raised was eventually spent on something apart from IVF they could truthfully say “we didn’t lie, we only said potentially for IVF.”
Conclusion
This is a couple that are trying to raise a substantial amount of money. For some reason, they don’t feel that being only factual will raise the amount they desire, so are trying to generate as much sympathy as they can.
Given this, and the lack of specifics about what they will do with the money raised, I won’t be donating.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments and if there’s anything else you’d like to look at let me know in the comments too.
In the news article there is a picture of a broken windowpane. No human ever climbed through that. Too narrow. If somebody broke it, that might make some noise, but breaking out the jagged pieces to be able to climb through can be done without making noise. The house looks messy, but not burglarized. So.......