Money Laundering for a crowdfund page?

Barrybaby

Hi, this is a really strange one. My friend has a fairly good following on social media and she has recently started a crowdfunding page. It's been going well and nearly hit it's target, but she has been contacted by someone offline that wants to make a substantial donation that would easily pass her target (it's in the £30k ballpark).... they asked if she would call her to talk to her and explain why, so she did as she thought well they can't get any information from me etc.
Apparently they had come into some money a long time ago and make lots of donations each year and her campaign resonated with them as they are a follower and want to help. They have offered to send her the money outside of the campaign to save the fees the crowdfund charge (around 8% I believe)... they have insisted they want no contract and it is just a donation and have asked the best way to send funds to her - even saying PayPal is ok. She doesn't know what to do and is worried about money laundering etc but the person was apparently very genuine, from Wales by all accounts (so not some long lost King from Uganda etc like a classic scammer) offered to give their name and business and address etc. 
So firstly i'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong section but additionally if she were to accept these funds, could she be liable? I've asked her if she has anything in writing and she does over text about zero liability or contract etc, literally a donation.
Very, very strange and unique scenario I know and my friend is understandably confused but excited. 
Any tips on what I should tell her to do or what she could to to protect herself / ensure it is genuine.

jonesMUFCforever

Simple Crowdfund or politely turn it down. As the sender does not get charged on Crowdfunding there is no need for them to worry about any charges.
You say the person is from Wales - is he really ? Do you know this for  a fact?
Have you set up a bank account for the funds? Or will you transfer funds to a charity/organisation when the fund is closed?
If you have a bank account you could always ask for a cheque payable to the organisation?
In this instance I would avoid Paypal like the plague.

John_

Is the crowdfunding for cosmetic surgery? There are people who’ll fund this sort of thing in exchange for some access to the works afterwards.

Sandtree

For money laundering they would need to have a mechanism of getting the money back which isnt immediately obvious from what you are saying. I would be more concerned of potential fraud rather than money laundering but until they accidently transfer £300,000 and ask her to return the other £270,000 its hard to spot.

Ultimately if they are concerned then push them through the crowdfunding website and see the fees as covering off the concerns about the risks.

Barrybaby

jonesMUFCforever said:

Simple Crowdfund or politely turn it down. As the sender does not get charged on Crowdfunding there is no need for them to worry about any charges.
You say the person is from Wales - is he really ? Do you know this for  a fact?
Have you set up a bank account for the funds? Or will you transfer funds to a charity/organisation when the fund is closed?
If you have a bank account you could always ask for a cheque payable to the organisation?
In this instance I would avoid Paypal like the plague.

That is a good idea, if it's through the crowdfund, surely she is covered. I think the donation person is saying I want to give you X and the crowdfund will get roughly 8-10% of that for nothing, can I avoid it so you get the full amount. I'm just going by what she said, but it would go into her existing business bank account I assume to be used for her campaign goals and certainly accelerate them. 
Why would a cheque payable to the organisation / her company help? 

Barrybaby

John_ said:

Is the crowdfunding for cosmetic surgery? There are people who’ll fund this sort of thing in exchange for some access to the works afterwards.

No it's product in the sportswear world of her own name

Barrybaby

Sandtree said:

For money laundering they would need to have a mechanism of getting the money back which isnt immediately obvious from what you are saying. I would be more concerned of potential fraud rather than money laundering but until they accidently transfer £300,000 and ask her to return the other £270,000 its hard to spot.

Ultimately if they are concerned then push them through the crowdfunding website and see the fees as covering off the concerns about the risks.

That was my thought, there is no way she has been asked for it back, it's more to futureproof that if they asked for it back. Like you say going through the crowdfund will boost her goal and probably offer the protection she wants / peace of mind. It's just if the donations is say £70k, it would be more like £63k which is what the person is trying to avoid. Such a strange scenario

Sandtree

Barrybaby said:

Sandtree said:

For money laundering they would need to have a mechanism of getting the money back which isnt immediately obvious from what you are saying. I would be more concerned of potential fraud rather than money laundering but until they accidently transfer £300,000 and ask her to return the other £270,000 its hard to spot.

Ultimately if they are concerned then push them through the crowdfunding website and see the fees as covering off the concerns about the risks.

That was my thought, there is no way she has been asked for it back, it's more to futureproof that if they asked for it back. Like you say going through the crowdfund will boost her goal and probably offer the protection she wants / peace of mind. It's just if the donations is say £70k, it would be more like £63k which is what the person is trying to avoid. Such a strange scenario

Are the percentages tiered? Never looked into crowdfunding but in other scenarios if monies go up the percentages come down... if they get such a large donation on top of what they already have it may be a lower fee?

You also need to consider the whole "success breeds success" type idea... random punter sees an idea wanting to get to £30k but they've only got £3.50 so far and they are unlikely to dig deep but they see its already got £85,000 and they may well think that there must be something to it and that motivates them to put money in too.... could potentially make more than the fees back through additional support it generates. Also not sure how the algorithms decide which pages to promote but again, getting good numbers could well be a factor.

Manxman_in_exile

Barrybaby said:

John_ said:

Is the crowdfunding for cosmetic surgery? There are people who’ll fund this sort of thing in exchange for some access to the works afterwards.

No it's product in the sportswear world of her own name

This may be a stupid question, but why would anybody want to donate a sum of £30k  to something like this?  You described them earlier as "a follower"?  Sounds a bit creepy to me.

Savvy_Sue

Sandtree said:

Are the percentages tiered? 

That's definitely a question worth asking.

Also I've been known to pontificate from time to time in response to posts moaning about JustGiving and the like charging a fee for donations. I've always felt that the time and effort needed to run a secure site for donations has to be paid for somehow. In this case, yes, perhaps a substantial amount MIGHT be saved, but what price peace of mind?

Jenna_Appleseed

Sounds like a variation of this https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/a-z-of-fraud/cheque-overpayment-fraud