Online crowdfunding has become a popular charitable tool in China of late, especially for those who need fast help. But the rise of begging for help online has caused lots of worries about frauds taking advantage of public generosity.
The loose supervision on the popular crowdfunding site Fun in Funding resulted in many alleged cases of fraud. On February 16, Ministry of Civil Affairs met with the firm's staff and urged them to pay more attention to eliminating fake information from the platform.
Netizens from Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, said the Fun in Funding's standards are noticeably low for fact-checking, and they complained of paying significant handling fees when donating. But there was also praise for the site, saying it helped a large number of persons in need, and people hoped authorities could jointly work with the firm to improve the process.
The firm also stressed it would pay attention to the auditing process, in order to weed out misleading or cheating donors, and provide fundraising services for organizations and individuals after confirming their information.
Shenzhen Evening News commented China’s laws about philanthropy should include regulations for the individual fundraising, and fundraising online should be normalized and supervised, in order to avoid donors losing trust in and enthusiasm for online crowdfunding due to fake information.