Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to investigate GoFundMe after they said they'd work with Canadian trucker vaccine protest fundraiser organizers to redistribute funds

Authored by businessinsider.com and submitted by Successful-Bee-2492

GoFundMe shut down a fundraiser for a Canadian protest over cross-border trucker vaccine mandates.

GoFundMe on Friday said it would work with organizers to redistribute the funds to other charities.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called that plan "fraud" saying he'd investigate "deceptive practices."

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Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would work with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to investigate GoFundMe for "deceptive practices" after the company said it would send remaining funds from the "Freedom Convoy" campaign to charities picked by organizers.

On Friday, the platform blocked $10 million in donations that were meant to go to the Canadian trucker vaccine protest. The protests began last weekend over mandates that truckers working across the US-Canada border must be vaccinated.

In a statement, GoFundMe said $1 million was released earlier this week and that fundraising organizers said the funds would be used for people who were traveling to Ottawa to participate in peaceful protests.

"Given how this situation has evolved, no further funds will be directly distributed to the Freedom Convoy organizers — we will work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible and established charities chosen by the Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers and verified by GoFundMe," the platform said.

Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly told The Washington Post on Saturday that there were a thousand vehicles, roughly 5,000 protesters, and at least 300 counterprotesters in the city.

"This is a siege," Sloly told the Post. "It is something that is different in our democracy than I've ever experienced in my life."

DeSantis on Saturday morning said, "It is a fraud for @gofundme to commandeer $9M in donations sent to support truckers and give it to causes of their own choosing."

The governor called for donors to get their money back: "These donors should be given a refund," he said.

However, his remarks came after GoFundMe already announced it had changed its approach and would instead be sending all donors a refund.

"We will automatically refund all contributions directly — donors do not need to submit a request," the platform said in a statement.

DeSantis' office and GoFundMe did not immediately respond to Insider's email requests for comment.

TechyDad on February 6th, 2022 at 12:48 UTC »

Nazis march in Florida and assault people

DeSantis: Asking me to comment on this is an attempt to trap me!

A California based company refunds donations made to a Canadian cause because they violated the California company's TOS

DeSantis: "This is the most important thing in the world and I plan to investigate it even though it doesn't affect my state!"

throwaway1029476 on February 6th, 2022 at 12:33 UTC »

Imagine being like “my constituents only care about shit not happening in my state”

alexxerth on February 6th, 2022 at 11:59 UTC »

The governor of Florida is going to investigate a company based in California for business they're doing in Canada?

Yeah good luck with that.