Elderly man seen working to fund wife's cancer treatment loses £500k in donations after truth emerges
An elderly man who was given $700,000 (£529,000) in donations after a viral video showed him hauling heavy luggage up steps to help pay for his wife’s medical bills has had his fundraiser taken down.
Donald ‘Don’ Johnson rose to internet fame after appearing in a video which revealed his life at 81 was consumed by working as an airport luggage delivery driver who was working to ensure his wife’s cancer treatment was being paid for.
In the initial video on TikTok on the 3 September, it showed Don hauling cases up steps, taken on what appeared to be a front door camera.
The caption read that the man ‘puts over 200,000 miles a year on his car delivering lost airline luggage because it’s the only job that will hire him’ and that his ‘beautiful wife of 51 years, Josephine, is currently fighting a severe battle against pancreatic cancer.’
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Claiming to be the ‘neighbour’, the TikTok account called HelpDonRetire said they had ‘started a GoFundMe as their local neighbor to get Don home’.
However, despite the charity page racking up hundreds of thousands in donations from people who want to help Don and Josephine, an updated video taken with Don, his wife and their daughter Amy says it was refunded back to donors on 'a technicality'.
According to NewsNation, there were 'factual misrepresentations' involved in the story, which led to the platform shutting down the fundraiser.
That’s because it turns out the page was originally said to have been launched by a neighbour, named Erin Howell, as seen on the GoFundMe page, but it was actually Amy who set it up.
Amy has since taken to TikTok to share what she called an unintentional issue which stemmed from her allegedly changing the name on her own GoFundMe account to a 'pseudonym’.
According to Amy, the neighbour wanted to remain anonymous, and since she believed 'it would reach farther with the neighbour than myself', she decided to change the name on her own GoFundMe account to the 'placeholder name' Erin Howell, essentially pretending to be the neighbour herself.
GoFundMe told NewsNation that Amy admitted to the company 'Erin Howell' was a fabrication and she had recorded the footage herself. However, Amy has not admitted to doing this in her account of what happened.
She told NewsNation: "“The whole video, the neighbor wanting to help. All of that is accurate,” but declined to give the outlet the neighbour's contact details to verify her identity.
She claimed: "At this point, she doesn’t even want to do it."
NewsNation verified that Don does work for a transportation service and his wife does have cancer.
The crowdfunding platform said of its investigation: “Our Trust & Safety team identified factual misrepresentations, which directly violate our Terms of Service.
“As a result, the fundraiser has been removed and all donors have been refunded. Ensuring GoFundMe is a safe and trusted place to give and receive help is our top priority. Taking action like this allows GoFundMe to protect donors.”
In response to a comment asking about Erin and whether she could clear up the misconceptions by proving her existence, Amy wrote of the issue: “The account was mine. We just used the original account instead of her doing a new one. Is that simple of a mistake with setting up and me trying to be helpful.”
Right now, Amy has set up another fundraiser for her parents, this time with a goal of $100k to help Don retire.
LADbible reached out to GoFundMe for comment. LADbible Group has attempted to contact Amy Johnson.
Britt Jones