Pham Thoai's charity appeal: people demand their mone.y back, experts are devastated

On February 27, the account receiving donations for bab.y Bap - a chil.d with cancer, under the name of TikToker Pham Thoai, continued to record many transactions with the content "requesting mone.y back".

Regarding this issue, lawyer Le Trung Phat, Director of Le Trung Phat Law Firm, provided legal analysis. Charitable support activities come from a good heart, often without any strings attached. The supporter wants his mone.y or goods to reach the needy through the caller.

According to the provisions of civil law, charitable activities can be considered as donation contracts, even if there is no signed document. Pursuant to Article 458 of the 2015 Civil Code, the donation is effective when the donee receives the property, unless otherwise agreed. In the case of normal fundraising, the calling party only acts as an intermediary, not the recipient of the property.

However, the case of TikToker Pham Thoai is different from general charity activities. This TikToker called for everyone to support directly to support bab.y Bap, with the clear purpose of curing the disease. Thus, at this time, the donation is not like normal charity activities (only identifying people affected by the flood without identifying exactly whether it is Mr. A or Ms. B).

Therefore, in my opinion, this is a case of conditional donation and is regulated under Article 462 of the Civil Code. The specific condition in this case is that the donation must be used to treat bab.y Bap.

If the mone.y is not used for the right purpose, that is, the recipient does not fulfill the obligations under the agreement, then according to Clause 3, Article 462, the supporter has the right to request a refund of the contributed amount and claim compensation for damages, if any.

However, the difficult problem here is that the treatment process for bab.y Bap does not take place in a short period but lasts according to the doctor's treatment regimen, which may include many methods with different costs. Treatment is not only limited to the time in hospital but also lasts after, including treating complications, health recovery and post-treatment care.

Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether the mother of bab.y Bap has used all the donated mone.y or whether the mone.y has been spent on treatment. If the mone.y has been used up, there is no basis for requesting a refund. If the mone.y is still available but is still in the process of treatment, it is also impossible to conclude that the mother has violated the commitment to use the mone.y for the right purpose for the supporter to claim the remaining mone.y back.

Only when the police investigate, verify and discover signs of fraud or deceit, leading to the initiation of a criminal case, will there be a basis to consider requiring a refund to the supporter. Currently, the law does not stipulate and cannot impose a ceiling on the amount of charity appeals, because the nature of the appeal is to support difficult circumstances or compensate for damages.

In reality, there are cases where the donation amount is greater than the treatment costs or actual needs of the recipient, but each situation is different and the level of damage is also different.

More importantly, charity cannot be limited by a specific number. Therefore, in my opinion, the law should not intervene by setting a ceiling on the amount of mone.y raised for charity, because there is no reasonable basis to determine this limit.

The key is not how much mone.y has been raised or whether the supporter has the right to ask for the mone.y back, but the transparency in the use of that mone.y. Even if the amount of support is up to hundreds of billions of VND, if it is public, transparent and given to the right people in need, the contributor will feel satisfied. This is something that both the caller and the recipient need to understand and implement.

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