We need to highlight a case where a rescuer had failed to disclose the fact that she is also claiming from other organisations when she submitted the claim forms to us. This rescuer has claimed from us many times, from March 2012 until May 2012 for many rescue cases.
Her latest case was recently posted and a reader wrote in to inform us that this rescuer had also received substantial sums of money from two other organisations during this period.
In our Multiple Fund Policy, we only work together with our partners, SCRATCH and PetFinder.my, on all medical cases whereby we inform these two organisations of all medical claims that come to us. If the bill is more than RM750, we recommend that the rescuer applies to our partners as well under our Multiple Fund Policy so that the rescuer gets a 60% joint subsidy instead of 50% (if applying from one fund).
Here is our Multiple Fund Policy: http://myanimalcare.
There is a clause on our form that says:
Are you also applying to other organizations for sponsorship for this case? If so, please state the name of the organizations : __________
This rescuer had answered “No” to this question on all her forms.
Last night, after receiving news that this rescuer had received money from other organisations, the first thing I did was to write to her to ask for clarification on this matter.
This morning, I contacted one of the organisations which had purportedly raised a substantial amount of money for her from their facebook page (fundraising from the public) to verify if the information given to me is true. The person-in-charge of this organisation confirmed that they had raised money for this rescuer, and the amounts and dates they were paid out were disclosed.
The person-in-charge also said that the rescuer had shown her the original receipts and even told her that she (the rescuer) would be posting the original receipts to AnimalCare for claims.
This means, very clearly, that the rescuer already had the intention to claim from two funds (or more) even before submitting her claims to us.
Our question now is, why was this not disclosed to us by a “Yes” answer to the clause on our form, ie. Are you also applying to other organizations for sponsorship for this case?
Failure to disclose the truth is unacceptable at all costs. We price honesty above all else, and we cannot allow abuse to set in because these are public funds that we are dealing with. We are accountable to our donors’ hard-earned money entrusted to us as donations, given in goodwill and trust that the money will be channeled to needy rescuers and their animals.
To be fair to the rescuer, we first sought clarification from her. We have since received replies from the rescuer and her reasons for failing to disclose the truth are presented below.
The rescuer admitted that she did claim from the other organisations. When asked why this fact was not disclosed in the form, she said she was only claiming for medication/treatment/
Her reasons notwithstanding, we maintain that there is still no reason to answer “No” in that question worded in very simple English: Are you also applying to other organizations for sponsorship for this case?
She had applied to other organisations, and she may not be sure how much she would be getting, but the fact remains that she had applied. The facts have to be disclosed honestly with a “Yes” to that question.
The date we paid out our first claim to her was at the end of March and it is the exact same date that she received the claim from the other organisation. Yet, this was not disclosed to us at all in her subsequent communication with us. Her many claims were submitted in March, April and May.
This rescuer writes perfect English, so failure to understand English does not apply in this case. We have had hawkers, fishmongers and many others who do not understand any English, yet they get someone else to fill up the form for them.
The rescuer in question has written to us and offered to return a portion of our subsidies as she claimed that she had no intention to cheat. We have not asked for the return of any money, so it would be her prerogative if she wishes to return any.
Let it be clearly stated here that we have NOT asked her to return any of the money. We do not want rumours to spread around saying otherwise as that would be extremely unfair to us. We subsidised her in good faith and based on trust. We are disappointed that this trust has been eroded on her part.
All these unfortunate turn of events could have been easily avoided if only she had disclosed the facts truthfully in the forms. While one may be worried/anxious/troubled with so many vet bills to pay, but this is not an acceptable reason to be untruthful.
If one is careless, perhaps one might forget to fill up certain portions of the forms (like those who forget to fill up the name of the bank, which I encounter too often). One might even forget to fill up this Yes/No clause out of carelessness, but in each of her forms, it was clearly written “No”.
Below are cuttings from her medical treatment claim forms. The others are neutering claims where we did not require disclosure of multiple claims since the amount for neutering claims is generally small. But we have revised our forms today to include this clause. So, please download our new forms if you wish to make a claim. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.
We now wish to gently remind all applicants to please disclose the facts HONESTLY when applying for claims from our funds. Please understand that we have to be accountable to public funds which have been entrusted to us in good faith and our intention is to help rescuers and their animals but we can only do so with justification, proper documentation and truthful disclosure of all the facts from the rescuer.
We would also like to invite other organisations that give out donations to work together with us so that we may jointly inform each other when a rescuer makes any claims. This is to prevent the incidence of multiple claims from happening, which definitely does not augur well for animal charity.
If animal charity is subject to abuse, it is going to lose its credibility with the public and at the end of the day, due to humans’ dishonesty, the animals suffer. We have seen this happening in old folks’ homes, orphanages and many other charities where the monies donated are misappropriated. People would just stop donating to such charities and who loses at the end? The animals who need it the most, and the honest rescuers.
We would also like to urge organisations to insist on keeping the original receipts when rescuers make any claim. This would, in some ways, prevent rescuers from making multiple claims from other organisations. In this case, if the other organisation had held on to the original receipts, the rescuer in question would not have been able to submit her claim to us, and the case of double-claim could have been prevented.
On our part, every case that we subsidise is published with details of the case, photographs of the animal and the rescuer’s full name. If other organisations would like to jointly work with us in this, we would be more than happy to forward all the claims for verification before we approve our subsidy.
There was a case of a group of rescuers who wanted to claim for neutering for a large number of dogs, but refused to give us the original receipt. We did not approve this claim.
Without the original receipt, no claim can be made from us.
Please let’s work together to prevent fraud and abuse in animal charity. We all know how much the street animals need help. Let’s help them, but please let us do so honestly and with integrity. This would be our responsibility to the animals.
We wish to ensure all our donors that we will take all possible actions to prevent the occurrence of fraud, abuse and dishonest claims as we are accountable to the donations that you have entrusted to us in good faith. We view each case of suspected dishonesty seriously and we will carry out investigation to uncover the truth. Such cases will be publicised on the blog as well.
In view of this case, we may need to revamp our policies again. For a start, all subsidies will NOT be paid out within 24 hours as per our previous practice. Please give us 3 working days before any pay-out is made.
Thank you.
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