A charity is supposed to do good, but they’ve exploited people and hurt those who the money was for

Christina Riley, 21, from Coatbridge, a third-year English literature student at the University of St Andrews, was due to trek the Amazon rainforest in August and had raised more than £3,000.

She said: “I had a big charity night in a parish hall with a choir and entertainment.

“My family and friends helped me in every way they could and more and I was really grateful for that.”

Christina found out that the charity had collapsed through fellow fundraisers on Facebook.

She said: “I was distraught. I felt so bad for everyone that had given me money.

“I didn’t care about not getting to go on a trip, it was just about how people had given me money and I had lost it all.

“My poor family helped me with my fundraising when I had my exams and I just feel so bad as I’ve let them down too.

“They’ve exploited a lot of people. It’s very unlikely that the charity didn’t know they were in financial crisis and it seems too convenient that they were trying to get as much of our fundraising money banked before they went bust.

“A charity is supposed to help people and it’s supposed to do good and they’ve not only hurt the people that the money is going to but they have hurt the people that were giving the money to them.

“At the end of the day I feel like all this money has not helped anyone.

“Going on a charity trip is something that I couldn’t put my faith in again.”