“I have run out of all my savings. I need 50,000 yuan (7,400 US dollars) every month to pay for chemotherapy for my mother’s breast cancer. Please help me!” – the new fund raising Apps turning out as a means to crowdbegging. This is an example of how Internetization is virtualizing everything that can be virtualized. The quoted message above represents an anonymous patients plea at Suzhou City Hospital, in east China’s Jiangsu Province. The message was on a fund raising application, requesting 300,000 yuan (44,000 US dollars) from friends and charity groups.
Based on analysis, and medical notes, the request was authentic but the actual and total cost was only 30,000 yuan, and that the patient was entitled to medical insurance which could already cover a large amount of the cost.
Online fund raising platforms have become an effective way for patients in urgent need of money to pay for emergency medical bills, its a good thing, but expect it to be abused as usual, as unscrupulous folks take advantage of unsuspecting folks to gain their its he’s.
Last Saturday, CCTV reported that a man in Chongqing Municipality had bought a car for 100,000 yuan (15,000 US dollars), after raising nearly 200,000 yuan (29,500 US dollars) on an online fund raising app called Qingsongchou.
The identity verification process for these platforms is not complicated, as long as people can offer copies of their ID cards, bank account information and “evidence” of the circumstances of their illnesses. To attract more funds, users of the app can share the information through social media.
However, there are no specific laws and regulations concerning the users of these apps in China’s legal system. On September 1, the first Charity Law was implemented in China. Providing false information for the purpose of private fund raising can be considered as fraud, according to Wang Jingbo, director of the Research Center for Governing by Law at the China University of Political Science and Law, in an interview with CCTV.
Adapted from CCTVNews