Cohh Carnage · @CohhCarnage
2nd Jul 2021 from TwitLonger
No easy way to say it and I'll make it quick...
Last weekend, I ran a birthday charity stream
Thursday: We open up early donating. A massive donation was not able to be made through Tiltify, so he wires it straight to St. Jude.
Friday: We raise over 300k in donations.
Saturday: Chat learns of the big donation, demands (lol) that it be counted towards the goal. We check with the big donator, he said it's fine. The donation doesn't actually go through to St. Jude. The donator sends me a bank document showing the transfer. I coordinate with St. Jude to get it on Tiltify when it comes in. It turns out there was an actual St. Jude document with a typo'd SWIFT number (a required number for wiring funds). We're assured everything is fine.
Sunday: Because we're so close to the 1million mark, we do a second charity event. Almost $80,000 is raised, bringing us to 1 million. All goals are reached.
Monday - Thursday: The big donation doesn't go through. I'm told it's a bank issue at first, then various other things. I coordinate and act as a back and forth between the donator and St. Jude.
Friday: I'm told by the donator that police are involved and he's being accused of a money laundering crime. He states he is not sure if he'll get the money back. At this point, even though I've been shown documents, I straight up ask him to please, just be honest with me. He is. He admits to lying about everything.
So that's what happened. A long term community member (3+ years) lied about making an extremely large donation to charity. We then do another stream raising $80,000 to get us to the 1 mil target.
So who is at fault here? The donator lied, sure. That's a given. But I jumped the gun. I counted the money as there before it had been confirmed. I did a second charity stream with goals that wouldn't have been hit if it wasn't for that donation that, frankly, I dropped the ball on confirming. That part is 100% on me.
So here we are. We ended up raising $420,732,69 for St. Jude over my birthday weekend.
I'm still incredibly, exceptionally proud of the community and everyone who donated. I am incredibly sorry I didn't look more into that large donation and follow it through. I was fully convinced (and frankly, wanted to believe) that someone had actually done it. I should have been more careful.
AS SUCH, since you all came together and gave that extra push for the goals, I will still be doing ALL donation incentives (including Dream Daddy, FFXIV and the hot tub stream) as if we had actually made that million. You guys really came through and did something special. It wasn't your fault that this happened, it's mine. And I'm definitely not going to screw you out of what you thought you were getting with those donations.
Anyway, that's it. I just felt this should be out there and that you should know about it. If anything, I've learned enough to make sure something like this never happens again. And to any other streamers who, unfortunately, may be in a similar situation, don't be like me and let yourself get fooled. Count the money as donated when it's actually there.
Thanks for reading this far. Appreciate you all. <3