Read the fine-print!

I recently contributed R10,000 to a campaign on this platform to raise funds for a family member and young mother who needs expensive treatment for cancer. A week after making the payment, I realised it is not reflecting on the profile of the beneficiary and queried it with BackaBuddy. Even though the amount was deducted from my account, they "apparently" could not locate it. After a few days they found it and said they added it to the profile, only to loose it again a few days later. Many week later, I'm still not sure if the payment ever was transferred to the beneficiary and they are now ignoring my requests on the subject. How many other payments do they "loose" without anyone's knowledge and what happens to those funds?

During this ordeal, I also reallised that they took 5.75% of my payment and only passed on R9,425 of the R10,000! If I knew this, I would have made the payment directly into the account of the beneficiary. The fee of 5,75% is stated on the fine-print of their website, but I'm quite sure very few donors or beneficiaries realise this when using this platform. Even though the concept of the platform is very good, the fee/commission is really excessive and not well communicated. My experience of BackaBuddy was shocking and I believe they cannot be trusted to work with so much money, intended for people in need. The website claims a total amount of almost R150mil having been processed - 5,75% of this is a very nice cut for managing a website!