Man’s Reddit Post of Accidental Donation Goes Viral

A man’s huge mistake paid off big in the end after he posted about his accidental donation. A redditor posted the almost-unbelievable story on the r/TIFU subreddit, which has since gone viral. In it, the California resident details an experience donating to a charity on GoFundMe that went sideways in a great way. The reddit post said the incident happened in February of last year met a neighbor who is a retired veteran in his 70s and also a devout Hindu priest.

One day, his neighbor told him about a hunger charity he manages for a community in Bangladesh. Wanting to support his neighbor, he went to the GoFundMe page for the charity, named “Urgent Food Relief Needed: Bangladesh” the next day while he was at work. He made a $150 donation but moments later received a text from his credit card company warning of an unusually large transaction on his credit card. He opened the message to see a payment of $15,041 to GoFundMe.

He immediately panicked and then figured out his mistake. He had accidentally started typing his credit card information while the cursor was still in the donation box, and just like that 150 became 15041. A call to GoFundMe’s customer support secured him a refund, but he was informed it would be processed in 3 to 7 business days and that the charity organizer would be able to see his donation until then.

Michael said he had planned on explaining what happened to his neighbor, the GoFundMe organizer, as soon as he could, but he had a rude awakening the next morning. He woke up to 40+ Facebook notifications with literally hundreds of photos of frail, elderly, disabled, and malnourished individuals holding signs with his name, thanking him for his donation.

Michael said he immediately contacted the organizer explaining the refund but ended up increasing his original donation of $150 to $1,500. The organizer graciously told him $1,500 will still go a long way. The story doesn’t end there, Michael’s reddit post went viral sending more than 3,700 contributors to the fundraiser, with some donating amounts as high as $5,000. A repost of his story on a popular Youtube channel drove even more donations to the charity as well.