Facebook scam on family of tragic girl
Bogus profile set up to raise money in memory of child who killed herself Her mother urged public not to donate
FACEBOOK has apologised after a conman set up a fake profile in the name of a grieving mother to try to raise money in memory of her daughter.
Fiona Tuomey, whose 11-yearold daughter Milly killed herself, had to urge people not to click on the charity link.
‘How low can people go?’
FACEBOOK has admitted it could ‘do better’ after a conman set up an account in the name of a grieving mother and sought donations in her late daughter’s memory.
The account was in the name of Fiona Tuomey, whose 11-year-old daughter Milly tragically took her own life in January 2016.
Mrs Tuomey last week discovered the Facebook page in her name and saw it was sharing a link to a bogus page on fundraising website YouCaring, claiming funds were being raised by the mother.
Although Facebook would last night not say how long it took to remove the fake account, it apologised and told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘We are grateful for having this matter brought to our attention and have removed the page, which violates our policies.’
A spokesman said: ‘We are sorry that this occurred. It is clear that we can do better, and we’ll continue to work hard to live up to the high standards people rightly expect of Facebook.’
Last Friday, Mrs Tuomey shared a link to the YouCaring fundraising page, which had her daughter’s picture, She said this page was ‘a fraud’.
She wrote: ‘My name is Fiona Tuomey. That is my daughter’s photograph. I am not fundraising so please do not share or support this page. I have reported it to the website.’
The fundraising page has since been removed. It had originally included a photo of Milly along with the words: ‘My name is Fiona Tuomey, my little girl was depressed and lost her life. We want to raise awareness and campaign of issues surrounding suicide and depression in Ireland. We want to assist the depressed and cater for them.’
Mrs Tuomey stated she reported the activity to Facebook and YouCaring. She also reported it to PayPal as the fundraising page had been set up under a verified PayPal account.
As of last night, YouCaring and PayPal had not replied to questions from the Mail. It is believed the Facebook account was set up at least two months ago.
Family friend Sarah Garland Shields commented on Mrs Tuomey’s real Facebook post: ‘Jesus Fiona, I have just realised I donated and shared the page on 17th December. I’m so sorry for you that there are such nasty, lowlives out there.’ YouCaring has not confirmed how much money was raised by the fake page.
The website’s policy states that once an account is created, the account owner can begin receiving funds immediately and withdraw them to a bank account.
Horrified friends of the Tuomey family spoke of their dismay at the actions of who ever set up the fake pages, describing the perpetrators as ‘disgraceful’.
One friend posted: ‘What sort of people are out there? Trying to use Milly’s name for fraud. Sick people!’ Another said in a post: ‘I am so sorry that you have to deal with this as well. How low can people go?’
Milly died two months after she posted on Instagram she had chosen the day she wanted to die.
An inquest last year heard her elder sister and school alerted her parents, Fiona and Tim, to the social media post, which they said came like a ‘bolt out of the blue’.
She was then brought to see a GP, who recommended her to a private counselling and psychotherapy clinic. However, the psychologist was no longer taking patients, and on November 24, 2015, Milly began a series of weekly appointments with an art therapist. After her first visit, an appointment was made with the HSE’s child and adolescent mental health services.
Milly had previously expressed her unhappiness at her appearance but her family said she was ‘extremely vivacious, loud, chatty and fun’. They said: ‘When she entered a room you knew about it – she was that kind of girl.’
Her mother discovered a ‘suicide diary’ under Milly’s bed prior to her death with medication indicating an attempt at self-harm. ‘She’d cut herself and written in biro on herself, “Beautiful girls don’t eat,”’ Mrs Tuomey told Dublin Coroner’s Court. ‘We were terrified. We had no experience of this and no idea what to do.’
The Tuomey family, from Templeogue in Dublin, had lived in Switzerland for five years before returning to the city.
Her family insisted that Milly had good friends and wasn’t subjected to bullying in school.
Mrs Tuomey declined to comment when contacted yesterday.
IT is no exaggeration to describe the statistics about Facebook as staggering.
Around 2.2billion individuals log on to the network each month and two-thirds of them use it every single day.
Against that backdrop, it comes as little surprise that the company’s annual revenue amounts to more than $40billion. Its profits have increased by around 50% for each of the last five years.
It goes without saying there are very good reasons why so many people like Facebook. Nor is there any doubt about the profound effect it has had on society and the media. There is, however, an increasing realisation about some its more alarming aspects. Only now are users learning that far more of their personal information is being harnessed than they could ever have expected. There are also serious questions about how Facebook uses this data.
Meanwhile, there is the issue of the company’s refusal to accept responsibility for material published on its pages. Yet it is clearly capable of using technology to restrict content it deems unacceptable, including images of nudity, and is prepared to do so. We can also look at the German experience. Due to the fact that Holocaust denial or promoting Nazism are crimes in that country, no such content is allowed to appear on Facebook accounts there.
Given that the capability exists to edit or remove material, it seems clear that the only reason for not doing do so is because it would cost money.
We need to get over the notion that Facebook is simply an online forum allowing people to connect with family and friends, or to share videos of cute kittens.
The truth is that it is one of the most successful, rapacious money-making enterprises on the planet. It is solely dedicated to bringing in as much profit as possible.
Now a deeply disturbing story emerges of how a conman set up a fake Facebook profile to scam people into making donations in the name of Milly Tuomey, an 11-yearold girl who took her own life. It is horrifying beyond belief to think this happened.
However, not only did it happen – Facebook chiefs have admitted that they didn’t do enough in the circumstances. We have previously raised the issue of the corporation’s unimpressive response to other situations, and only three months have passed since Facebook executives were summoned before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs to answer questions on why it was so difficult to have offensive, threatening or privacy-invading material taken down.
The bottom line is that Facebook is a business like any other. Accordingly, it needs to be regulated in the same way that restaurants, taxi drivers, pharmaceutical firms and countless other industries are.
The sooner our legislators realise this, the better. It goes without saying that Milly Tuomey’s grieving family deserved better protection from this additional trauma. But the bigger point is that the authorities should have protected them by not letting it happen in the first place.