Donation drive for a friend...

[seawasp]

ETA: The drive is over. Thanks very much to everyone who participated! The funds covered what was absolutely needed.


I have a friend named George Green (kharaku). He's made some... pretty bad life decisions, and he's stuck at the bottom right now; check his LJ entry here if you want details of the problems that make this an acute issue. To a great extent he's gotten himself in this mess, but at heart he's a good guy and some of his current problems are NOT his fault, so I'm going to do this for him once.

Short version: George's stuck in the Ukraine with essentially no money, and his laptop -- the tool he uses to do whatever work he can get as a web designer, writer, etc. -- was stolen from him.

He needs a new laptop; his ideal would be a Mac Powerbook but he's used others; the last one taken was an ASUS P50IJ.

I have set up a Paypal donation button below for people to contribute towards getting him a replacement laptop, probably from craigslist or some similar used location unless people are extraordinarily generous; any excess will go towards helping him have some resources to get the heck off the streets/out of charity places. If someone HAS an appropriate laptop they would like to donate, contact me and I'll arrange to get it to him.

I will leave this up for two weeks; if insufficient funds for a laptop  are given, I'll send whatever I have to George to at least give him something to work with.

Comments

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

Word of caution here: can you confirm to yourself that this absolutely, positively is your friend and he really is in trouble?

Because this has the earmarks of a classic Internet/telephone scam: pretend to be a close friend or relative stranded overseas who needs cash wired to them right away to get unstranded. Money gets sent and never heard from again. When victim checks on friend who was supposedly in trouble, they were safe at home the whole time. It was a scammer pretending to be them who sent the appeal for money.

Be careful, and double-check. Scammers can use LJ, too.

[seawasp]

This isn't a sudden development; I've watched it all develop. (If you scripted George's life for a soap opera, no one would believe it, including normal soap-opera fans). So yes, I'm sure it's George. I know the way he writes, where he's been, and why he's in this situation.