Man accidentally donates Tk15 lakh to Bangladeshi charity: Read what happened next
A 32-year-old man, who goes by the username u/lazybear90, recounted on Reddit the story of how he accidentally donated $15,000 to a food relief fundraiser in Bangladesh instead of the $150 he had initially intended.
Michael, after being persuaded by his friends to share his experience, shared the story which took place in February of last year, on the subreddit TIFU, reports the Independent.
He revealed that the incident happened soon after he and his wife, then 31, had moved into a new apartment building in San Francisco, California, last year.
The couple's new neighbours, a "70-something-year-old retired veteran" who Michael referred to as Joe and who the Reddit user described as a "white American guy" and "a devout Hindu priest", informed him about a charity he managed for a community in Bangladesh.
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On the Reddit post, Michael wrote that he wanted to support his neighbour's charity, so he asked Joe to send him the GoFundMe link.
"The next day at work, I go on the GoFundMe page and donate $150. Or so I thought," he continued, before revealing that, "moments later," he received a warning from his credit card company about an "unusually large transaction".
"I'm confused and swipe to open the text message. It says I have paid $15,041 to GoFundMe," he wrote, adding that he "immediately" began sweating and panicking.
"How could I have donated FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS? I spend the next 10 to 15 minutes retracing my steps, and finally, I realise my credit card starts with the numbers four and one.
"It seems I had accidentally started typing my credit card information while my cursor was still in the donation box, and just like that 150 became 15041. Yikes."
In an effort to rectify the mistake, Michael said he immediately called GoFundMe's support line "in a panic," and was eventually able to explain to a human operator what had happened.
'In a panic", Michael shared that he immediately reached out to GoFundMe's support line and was informed that they would be able to reverse the transaction and refund him the money in three to seven business days, which the Reddit user described as a "huge relief".
However, it concerned Michael that the charity would be notified about the funds which had "doubled overnight" before the charge was reversed.
"I ask the agent if the charity will be able to see the donation on the GoFundMe page until it is refunded. 'What do you mean?' the agent asks me. 'What do YOU mean what do I mean?' was my response," he wrote. "'Will they be able to see the $15,041 donation?!' Unfortunately, yes, the agent tells me. They will be able to see it until the refund process is complete. I tell him that's a big problem, as the entire GoFundMe had hardly raised that much at that point. Surely they will notice their fundraiser doubling overnight?"
According to the post, it was at this point he decided to reach out to his neighbour and explain the situation so that Joe would be able to pass along the information to his fundraiser contacts.
The situation, however, his worries got worse the next morning when he woke up to more than 40 Facebook notifications from an individual in Bangladesh thanking him for the donation, says the Independent.
"The man had sent me a video of himself from Bangladesh, surrounded by dozens of impoverished and hungry people holding bags of food, thanking me BY NAME (Michael) for my generous donation," he wrote, adding that he began to panic and pace around his apartment. "Part of me wants to scream, part of me wants to crack up laughing."
According to the Reddit user, the man in question had sent him "literally hundreds" of pictures of individuals in Bangladesh thanking him for the GoFundMe donation.
The gratitude he received from the Bangladeshi people who were helped by the donation made him rethink his decision to refund the entire charge, as he said he "couldn't live with myself just donating $150 after seeing how the community responded to the $15,041".
"I decided the least I could do was to add a zero, and so I donated $1,500 once the original donation was refunded. The charity's host was incredibly gracious and understanding, and he explained to me that $1,500 goes very far in Bangladesh for urgent food relief," Michael continued, before adding a current link to the charity's GoFundMe.
In the story which has now gone viral on Reddit, Michael shared that he believed the experience was a "win-win," as he "helped a great cause, and I got a funny story out of it".
Due to the rising popularity of the charity due to this incident, there has been an influx in donations and raised more than $118,000 of its $148,000 goal.
"Two weeks ago, a donor's story went viral online, bringing our GoFundMe to over 2,800 amazing new donors from across the planet. Result: doors that were closed to us before are now opened. Resources which were out of reach are now available. This new capacity enables us to bring more food to more people more often," the GoFundMe's organiser Jeffrey Dunan wrote, adding: "Our field director in Bangladesh, Mr Shohag Chandra, is now able to prepare and host up to eight food-relief programs per month. Since January of this year, we have constructed a dedicated kitchen with commercial-grade cooking equipment.
In the update, Dunan, who also goes by Vasanta Dasa, explained that the goal of the fundraiser is "simple," to "bring the best resources we can find to those who need it the most primarily to an underserved population (the elderly and the poor)".
The fundraiser began in 2021 and the charity "provides meals and other supplies to people regardless whether they are Hindu, Christian, young, old, tall, small, etc". "Hunger knows no boundaries," Dunan wrote.
According to Dunan, because of Michael's viral Reddit post, the fundraiser had received more than 1,800 donations in a single day.
"Saw the Reddit story of Michael on the YouTube channel Smosh and just wanted to say that Michael's embarrassing story ended up fundraising for so much more than what would have been raised. So, in a sense, he did end up donating $15,041 and much more," one person wrote.
Another said: "You're a good guy, Michael."
The original post has been upvoted more than 36,000 times, and readers have praised Michael for sharing the story and helping raise money for the GoFundMe.
