We immediately paused the fundraiser and have sought explanation from the family. We found the facts mentioned pertaining to the treatment and hospitalization as misleading. “Our trust and verifications team re-investigated this, including a physical visit to the hospital. When TNM asked Milaap about this particular fundraiser, the platform said that the fundraiser was reported by a few users on their page.

Interestingly, the campaign was soon stopped by the platform and a message on the campaign page read, “This campaign has stopped and can no longer accept donations.” The campaign had already managed to raise Rs 27.74 lakh out of the Rs 30 lakh target that was set.

A reminder was sent to the fundraising platform on July 11, but he still didn’t get a response. Charan’s mail however, did not evoke any response. Another observation mentioned was that the target of the campaign was initially set for Rs 10 lakh, but was later increased to Rs 30 lakh. He also mentioned that the handle promoting the campaign on Twitter was blocking all those reaching out with queries. The reasons included absence of hospital and billing information. In his mail, a copy of which TNM has, Charan mentioned four reasons why the campaign is likely to be fraudulent. Another account (RiyaSingh_1993) which was also promoting the campaign enthusiastically, also restricted its tweets when people began calling them out.Ĭharan wrote to the fundraising platform to alert them of the possible discrepancies. When TNM looked up the handle on Twitter, the account had its tweets protected and the account’s timeline was restricted. Another person on Twitter mentioned that an account was blocking all those who posed questions to her about this particular campaign. Following which he tried to reach out to the creator of the campaign via Twitter, but to his surprise found that he was soon blocked. On July 9, Charan received the link to this particular campaign and was asked to help verify if it was genuine. Sai Charan Chikkulla, a volunteer based out of Hyderabad has been actively working since the pandemic, trying to help patients with oxygen and beds in hospitals.

Genuine fraud review