Complete and Total Transparency: Saving Our Sisters is Attacked

UPDATE:
Since this post has been published, a few things have changed. The transaction from the Gofundme account was reversed so that money never posted to Lynn’s bank account. If you are seeking a refund you will have to go directly through GoFundMe. This, however, also reinforces that Lynn stole nothing. Even though SOS is still being accused of scamming on the updates section of the Gofundme page.

Additionally, Beverly (sister) requested that Lynn’s payment of $400 for her care be reversed. One can only speculate why. 😉 So Lynn HAS recovered that money! Yay!

A portable crib arrived at the house yesterday thanks to one of our generous donors. Yet, the Gofundme page was updated today saying the money would be used for a crib. Something is definitely not right.

The attack on SOS continues but all it has done, thus far, is gather more support, for which we are eternally grateful for.

Original Post about this: SOS Update: Mom in Georgia

Saving Our Sisters Interim Page

I really hate that I have to do this. It’s ridiculous, but now it’s necessary. Since publicly announcing that we are no longer endorsing the campaign for the mom in Georgia, we have had a lot of accusations thrown our way all over the internet. Most of these come from the family and friends of the mom. One person, however, is Beth S. Brock. Beth is a member of the adoption community and had signed up to be a volunteer person for Saving Our Sisters. Since she lived close to the mom in Georgia we utilized that as our local contact person. Since then, Beth has, regrettably, participated in a smear campaign and has decided that she no longer supports SOS. She has accused us of fraud and keeps claiming the FBI is now investigating us as well as there being “pending charges.” Honestly, I believe it is a lot of “fluff” since this all supposedly transpired on a Sunday evening. Because of the actions of others, and a slanderous statement about SOS on the now stalled GoFundMe page, SOS finds it necessary to put out there, for all to see, exactly what transpired through texts and messages. We did not record phone calls, as we don’t think we’re going to have to defend our actions when we are helping a mother, but I did listen in on the majority of calls that transpired between Lynn, sister, or mom.

Here are the texts and messages that transpired over the past few days. You can see for yourself that these accusations are ridiculous. Lynn did NOT threaten to call DCAFS on the new mom. Lynn DID threaten (and followed through with) to call the police once the lying and games started. She had every right to. Her bank information was now on an account that she was locked out of and that sister could view. Trust was now out the window due to lies and I wouldn’t want my information out there like that either. Not to mention that the money raised for Dana was now going to be used to pay sister’s long overdue bills without the consent of the donors. Lynn did say that she didn’t want to have to call the police because that would not look good for Dana and the ALREADY OPEN DFACS  CASE. Lynn also implied that drama (i.e., car being repossessed) would not be good for the ALREADY OPEN DFACS  CASE. The sister is also claiming she never asked for her car payment to be made or the electric bill. The electric bill request was made over the phone so I have no proof of that. However, I do have the text of her asking for the car payment to be made. Logic tells you that since she lied about this request she is also lying about the electric bill request. Lynn did not take and keep the money from the GoFundMe. As I told you yesterday, Lynn DID initiate a transfer into her bank account per the agreement between her and sister. Upon being locked out of the account Lynn assumed that transfer had been stopped. It wasn’t, as we found out later. This transfer took place, according to sister and mom, at 3:45 am on Sunday morning. Later that day accusations were flying that Lynn had the money in hand and was keeping it. However, that ACH transaction still has not shown up in her bank account. Technically the banks still have the money while it goes through the digital world. There is also a chance that the money will not show up at all. Several people have messaged saying they have reported the campaign for fraud. Since the ACH transaction is still pending, if GoFundMe decides that there is cause for fraud, they may reverse the transaction until they can figure out what to do with it. This is a worst case scenario. What you will see, in the following texts and messages, is confirmation of everything we have said. Confirmation of the email sent out to donors asking permission to use the money as car payments and electric bills for sister. Confirmation from mom and sister that they okay’ed that email. Confirmation that the funds for GoFundMe were voluntarily given to Lynn for SOS to manage to avoid fraud and have complete and total transparency. You will not see anything illegal done on the part of SOS. You will see a lot of pissed off people that SOS removed their endorsement from this campaign. You will see a lot of vile comments directed at myself and Lynn. You will see total chaos and craziness and our attempt to manage it and do damage control to protect the SOS name.

Unfortunately, after this incident, we will no longer be able to help mothers without them first signing a contract for services rendered. This contract will be signed before the vetting process begins. And because of Beth S. Brock’s betrayal, we are also drafting a volunteer contract. These contracts will mean that it may take longer for moms to get services from us. This means that some emergencies may not get addressed in a timely manner. This means there is a chance that some moms may slip through the cracks. I wish it wasn’t this way, but SOS has to protect its members, its assets, and its reputation or we cannot be there for ANY mothers in the future.

Side note: It is very odd to me that Beth would think that SOS was capable of any of the things she is accusing us of. My opinion is that being on the ground with this mom has, obviously, pulled on her heart strings. I also believe she truly thinks that Lynn threatened to call DFACS, which simply isn’t the case. On the other hand, Beth now wants all the money from the GoFundMe, once it posts into Lynn’s account (if it does) deposited into HER PayPal account. She accuses Lynn of committing fraud for having the funds deposited into her account and then tells Lynn to send them to hers. Not sure what to make of that.

This message was sent minutes after getting confirmation from mom and sister that the email composed (asking donors if it was okay that the GoFundMe was used for car payments and electric bills) was okay to send. In order to send out the email to all of the donors, you must be able to log into GoFundMe and send them via that route. This was TIME SENSITIVE as we needed responses from all donors by Monday morning since there was a Tuesday disconnection. Notice the time stamp of the first message – 2:49 pm. When there was still no response, after 15 minutes, and after phone calls that went unanswered and ignored (both to mom and sister) and finding that the password had been changed, things became suspicious. Notice Lynn does NOT threaten to call DFACS. She does say her hand is being forced to call the police. Keep in mind that this was after a couple of hours of opposition, on the phone (I was conferenced in) asking why we need to ask donors permission for the electric bill, accusing of wanting to steal the money, talking over us and not listening to the explanation we were giving about transparency. Still, we kept repeating, “You need to stay calm. We are here to help. We want to help. But we have to protect you and ourselves. We didn’t ask for donations for the electric bill. We need permission from the donors.”

Text messages between Mom and Lynn. Lynn is blue, Mom is red.

Accusing Lynn of changing the password while she’s in the account sending out the emails to donors. The emails that were agreed upon in order to maintain transparency. The password was not changed. It never was. It was only changed by sister. And more accusations. Why do they not trust us? We only asked people for donations, paid the sister’s car payment out of our own pockets, and had tons of baby stuff mailed to them (again, by our request). It isn’t like we asked them for social security numbers, bank account information, or anything like that. They don’t even have bank accounts.

So, at this point, we’d had enough. It was becoming obvious that mom and sister couldn’t be trusted. We had given them no reason not to trust us. This is where I start to wonder where this mistrust came from. Was Beth on the ground telling them not to trust us? Are they just paranoid by nature? Did they honestly think we were trying to steal money from donations that we raised? I mean, seriously. Why would we need mom to raise money fraudulently? If we wanted to do that we’d just make something up and save ourselves the headache.

At this point, Lynn was still unaware that the ACH transaction she had requested through WePay had not been stopped. She had been locked out of the account and assumed that her bank account information was now in the hands of these people and that the transaction for the donations had been halted. Because of the constant opposition we faced, and the accusations being flung, Lynn then assumed, as any reasonable person would, that this was also untrue and we started to think that maybe these people were a little nuts.

Let’s back track a little. When mom, sister and sister’s fiance (saying he is her husband) reach out to Lynn. Lynn did not contact them.

So HERE ^^^ you can see where it was first suggested to take down the GoFundMe campaign. The prospective adoptive parents had been made aware that mom was trying to raise money. This is not good for a number of reasons but if you throw in using the money raised for mom that was supposed to go for an apartment and baby items and then use it to pay sister’s bills and PAPs get wind of that (as they were already aware of the campaign thanks to someone posting it on their page) then you must be EXTRA careful everything is on the up and up. They have the resources to pursue avenues of fraud. They put her out when she decided to parent. They called DFACS on her. Why would they not try something as far as donations were concerned? This is why it was suggested that donations go directly through SOS and the campaign be taken down. GoFundMe takes 7.9% and 30 cents per donation for themselves for using their service. Direct donations don’t. SOS direct donations also means privacy and accountability. Mom and sister are protected. No one can accuse them of fraud or using the donations for something other than what they said it would be used for (like PAPs).

Again, reiterated. Not threats to call DFACS, actual concern that the PAPs would cause trouble that way. I remember the conversation between Lynn and I, on the phone, where she worried that having the campaign stating mom was homeless would be used against mom by PAPs if they decided to pursue legal means to have baby removed. This is where we first discussed transferring or shutting down GoFundMe and having SOS handle donations for transparency. To PROTECT MOM AND BABY FROM OVER ZEALOUS ENTITLED PAPS. Also notice that while sister is telling everyone she never asked for her car payment to be made that she is doing just that in the previous text message and the following one.

Okay. Notice the time stamps. When requesting to call, Lynn called, hence the gaps. Notice that we said, from the beginning, the agreement, via their phone conversation, was that Lynn would pay the $400 from her personal account to avoid repossession. She would eat that money if donors were not okay with it going for a car payment. The other stipulation, since this was becoming such a mess, was that SOS would manage the funds. Again, to protect ALL parties. As you see here, after she asked for the car payment, sister texts Lynn asking how to transfer the account (per the agreement they had on the phone) and then gives her the log in for GoFundMe and WePay. The account wasn’t transferred totally into Lynn’s hands because we work on mutual trust. At this point there was no reason given to us that we couldn’t trust them. Beth had vetted them, she had reported, and everything seemed fine. Sister OFFERED TO TOTALLY TRANSFER THE ACCOUNT TO SOS. Lynn decided it would be better to just share passwords and have everyone on the same page. Transparency.

So what you are looking at here is Lynn actually logging into the GoFundMe and WePay to take control of and manage the funds. When you try to log into WePay from a device that isn’t what it was created on it will send a code to the phone number listed on the account. In this case that was sister’s phone. Lynn needed it to go into the account and initiate a withdraw into her account to manage the funds and, eventually, shut down the campaign so all donations could go directly through SOS (reasons were mentioned above). You will also see that sister had already requested a check be mailed to her for $60 from the GoFundMe account (since they do not have bank accounts).

Let’s go a little ahead into the story. These texts transpire after the meltdown about the electric bill, accusations we are trying to steal money, and after the  disagreement was resolved and it was decided we would send an email to all donors asking if that was okay. You can see the email that went out in THIS POST.

And it is with this text message that we leave where we left off before I went into the back story. This is sister confirming that she is okay with the email being sent out asking for her overdue electric bill to be paid. You know, the one she says she never asked to be paid for with the GoFundMe money?  This is also where Lynn learned she was locked out of the account and couldn’t send the emails out because of it. This is where we began to not trust and started to think that sister was royally screwing over mom.

So, when mom and sister were both made aware that Lynn couldn’t use her own personal account AGAIN to pay another bill of the sister’s without confirmation from donors that it was okay to use that money to pay Lynn back (to the tune of $1000 dollars if she had paid that electric bill) they are suddenly too busy with company to give the password to the GoFundMe account so the emails can go out and permission granted from donors. Seeing as they were set to be disconnected in less than 2 days you would think this would be something urgent. Again you will see Lynn’s frustration and the trust slipping and all the accusations over the phone (and some in text) starting to weigh on her. She doesn’t threaten to call DFACS, she threatens to call the police. Rightfully so.

The call Lynn is referring to is the police. As you can see, everything is now starting to stink. We are convinced that sister is doing something fraudulent. We don’t trust that she will actually email the donors so we insist that we be the ones to send those emails out.

And, confirmation that Lynn did not intend to call child services. The police, yes. The “accusations” that sister is referring to are us asking to manage the funds. She did, in fact, call the police and spoke with Sgt. Perez. All of this was to protect mom from sister who repeatedly claimed, over the phone, she had no idea what was going on with the donations or account. All the more reason for us to look out for her.

So what you are seeing here is Lynn slowly realizing she may be getting taken for a run by the sister. She decides that is probably best to attempt to have that payment stopped (in which she was not successful). You are also seeing the sister throwing it back in her face that she paid it. This is where I reported the GoFundMe page for fraud. Still not aware any funds had been transferred to Lynn. That wouldn’t have mattered, though. I would have preferred GoFundMe work it out and keep the money. After the campaign was reported for fraud the above message came in. Remember, these past few texts were ALL about us gaining access to DONOR EMAILS TO ASK THEIR PERMISSION TO USE THE FUNDS FOR AN ELECTRIC BILL AND CAR PAYMENT. Why did we face such opposition to ask their permission?

The call in which Lynn is referring to here, is the call to her credit card company about the $400 charge on her account for sister’s overdue car payment.

PART 2

In the meantime, the local contact person for SOS starts a campaign of harassment against Lynn. Lovely, right?

First, the initial messages between Beth and Lynn about her being the contact person for SOS.

As you can see, Beth and Lynn both discussed the GoFundMe campaign and the concern that the prospective adoptive parents may use it to find a way to take the baby away.

You can also see that Beth was fully aware that the funds would be going into Lynn’s account so SOS could manage and make sure all the I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed.

THIS IS WHERE THINGS TOOK A DRASTIC AND ASTONISHING TURN IN REGARDS TO BETH.

I can’t help but wonder if the mom and sister, upon knowing we wanted permission from the donors to use the money for costs that they didn’t donate for originally, brought Beth into things and manipulated her into thinking we were going to call DFACS on mom. Because they did NOT want to get permission to use those funds for something other than an apartment for Mom and baby items.

In addition to this, there are messages that transpired between myself and mom.

The messages, in their entirety aren’t anything but more of the same of what I’ve posted. Its mom reiterating she has no control over the GoFundMe page and doesn’t know what’s going on with it. What’s important here is that she sent a screen shot of the WePay site saying that they were sending a payment to the bank (Lynn’s bank). And the next message says it was sent at 3:45 am (on Sunday). Since Sunday evening is when I was speaking to her it is proof that it was IMPOSSIBLE for Lynn to have access to those funds when these accusations were flying. And EVEN THEN, we offered for Lynn to pay the electric bill, out of her own personal account, if donors agreed that funds could be used for that, and Lynn would recoup the car payment and electric bill from the GoFundMe funds.

THIS is when we found out that the deposit had NOT been changed when we were locked out of the WePay account. Sunday EVENING.

Notice I say “after the emails are in with everyone agreeing to that who donated (which shouldn’t be a problem)”

This is in reference to the email sent out to all the donors. This is me reinforcing to her, as I had before, that there would probably be no problem with the funds being used for the car and electric bill as long as we were up front with everyone. After all of this went down, Lynn checked those emails and found that almost everyone was okay with that. Until they found out about the accusations that were being thrown at SOS. Then they did have a problem with their money going for something that they didn’t donate for – sister’s bills.

And here you will see me saying, even after all their accusations, lying and run around, that we could STILL do the deal with the electric bill. You know, the one that sister claims she never asked to be paid. You will also notice that this is when I became aware that the funds were, indeed, in the process of being transferred to Lynn’s account. Because ACH transactions take a few days, Lynn was willing to use her own money, after confirming the deposit was going into her account, to pay the electric bill as well so that it would be paid in time to avoid a shut off from the electric company.

Here it is folks. TOTAL transparency. I have not blocked the email addresses of Beth S. Brock because that is who you will now need to contact if you would like to request a refund of your donation for it being used on things that were not stated in the original campaign. Once the funds have cleared the bank, Lynn will be transferring them to her. This is so she can stop being harassed and so that SOS’s name stops getting drug through the mud. So, if you are okay with Beth having control over the money and what it’s used for, you need not do anything. If you are not okay with this, you will need to contact her directly. Understand, though, it may be a couple of days before Beth has the actual money to refund and the fees that GoFundMe charges may not be able to be returned. You may also attempt to recoup your donation through GoFundMe if you’d like.

It really is a shame that any of this had to be posted. SOS HAS to protect it’s good name, though. We have to. We cannot let accusations continue to persist and not address them. Additionally, the SOS page is not going to be able to be updated on Facebook for a week since Beth, mom or sister (maybe all) reported the page. Lynn also cannot post, comment, or like on Facebook for a week. She can still message. None of this needed to happen. It was unnecessary and counter productive. The sad thing here is that mom and baby will suffer for this. We’ve done all we can to help without putting our own well-being at risk.

My kids have been waiting patiently for the past few hours for me to finish with this so that I can spend some time with them. I cannot even begin to tell you how many hours Lynn and myself have invested in this. The parties that would attack us and create this situation should be ashamed of themselves.