Leukemia, or cancer of the blood, is the most common type of cancer in children which is why families with a member who has the ailment would do anything to pay for the treatment of the disease which could be fatal. In May, a Zhejiang woman tried to raise 350,000 yuan by being a human dartboard to pay for the treatment of her sister with leukemia.
In November, a Hangzhou 19-year-old schoolgirl advertised she was selling her virginity to raise 200,000 yuan for her brother who has leukemia. In late November, Luo Er, a Chinese father, posted on WeChat that his five-year-old daughter, Luo Yixiao, is battling leukemia, and he sought financial help from Chinese netizens who contributed $390,000, or 2.7 million yuan in just five days after his post went viral with more than 100,000 views in half a day.
But on Nov. 30, some netizens exposed that Luo Er appears to have used his daughter’s leukemia to enrich himself. Some netizens revealed that he owns two cars and three apartments, while the bulk of Luo Yixiao’s medical bills were covered by insurances, What’s on Weibo reported.
It appears to have been a marketing strategy since Luo Er was apparently in collaboration with a marketing company to that every repost of his article would earn Luo Er one yuan. When the amount of donations reached the maximum amount of 50,000 yuan per day per article, netizens contributed directly to Luo Er’s personal account which raised 2 million yuan within two hours only.
The expose by netizens lead Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, where Luo Yixiao was treated for three months, to disclose to the public that the child’s medical bill was only 36,000 yuan which made the child’s father richer by a few million yuan. Luo Re said he would return the money who felt betrayed upon learning that the Luo family has financial resources.
Luo Er explained that the high mortgage prices of his apartments was the reason why he could not sell the units and not because he was not willing to do that for his daughter.
Since it is not the first time that the WeChat “Wallet” platform was abused, the Chinese government is considering passing a new law that would prohibit public donation campaigns started by unauthorized people. Tencent, which owns WeChat, said that Luo Er agreed to full refund the donations by the end of Dec. 3.