A GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $700,000 for a Dallas-Fort Worth couple has been taken down after the platform discovered the person running it wasn’t a sympathetic neighbor, as claimed, but the couple’s own daughter.
The fundraiser was set up to help Donald Johnson, 81, and his wife Josephine, who has an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. Johnson became a viral figure after home security footage showed him, at his age, hauling lost luggage up to a customer’s door as part of his work as an independent contractor delivering bags for travelers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
According to Johnson’s family, he took the job three years ago after his wife’s diagnosis, working roughly 14-hour days and driving hundreds of miles daily to keep up with bills. The family says he’s put more than 200,000 miles on a car that is now breaking down.
The fundraiser launched Sept. 2 under the name “Erin Howell,” described as a neighbor moved to help the couple. But GoFundMe’s Trust & Safety team received a tip on Sept. 25 questioning the organizer’s identity, and an investigation found “Erin Howell” was actually Amy Johnson, the couple’s daughter, NewsNation first reported.
“Our Trust & Safety team identified factual misrepresentations, which directly violate our Terms of Service,” GoFundMe told NewsNation.
Amy told the platform she used the neighbor persona because she believed the story would resonate more with donors coming from someone outside the family, and said she’d received the doorbell camera footage from an anonymous neighbor. She has maintained that every underlying fact — her father’s job, her mother’s cancer, the family’s financial strain — is accurate.
GoFundMe said the misrepresentation of who was actually running the campaign was enough to violate its rules, regardless of intent.
“As a result, the fundraiser has been removed and all donors have been refunded. Ensuring GoFundMe is a safe and trusted place to give and receive help is our top priority,” the company said in a statement.
GoFundMe also said Amy acknowledged on a recorded call that she had posed as a neighbor when she originally set up the page.
All donors were refunded once the page was deactivated. Amy has since launched a new fundraiser on GiveSendGo, where she addressed the controversy directly.
“My mom has pancreatic cancer. The bills are high. My dad is 81 and still works delivering luggage so they can stay afloat,” Amy wrote, adding: “The neighbor story is real. The doorcam video is real. The diagnosis is real. The job is real.”
She said the original page was set up under her own account simply because it was already established, and that she offered GoFundMe documentation before the refunds were issued.
“When the name on the page was updated, GoFundMe treated it as a discrepancy. We offered documentation. They refunded the donations anyway,” she wrote.
Amy acknowledged the refunds were frustrating for both her family and donors, but said nothing about her mother’s treatment or her father’s situation has changed.
“We started over on a new page so your support can actually reach them this time. If you already gave, thank you. If you can, even a little, it goes to her care and to getting him off those stairs,” she wrote.
As of Monday, the GiveSendGo campaign had raised more than $45,000 toward a $100,000 goal.
