The earthquake disaster in Haiti is a terrible thing, a disaster that the mobile phone world rallied round too, and according to an article over on inquisitr, as of Friday people who text “Haiti” to 90999 had donated a fantastic sum of $8 million to the Red Cross Haiti Relief fund.
One would have though as soon as these generous donations were made the cash relief would be handed to the relevant charities so they can do the humanitarian deeds they are so good at, but no, apparently any of those text donations will not be forwarded until the person has paid their bill.
Apparently once the person pays their bill the text donation is routed via a carrier which aggregates the donations before sending them to one of the foundations which then transfer them to the relevant charities.
Furthermore it could take up to 90 days for said funds to reach Haiti, while mobile phone carriers stating they can’t ‘front’ the money before a customer pays up, although Verizon Wireless has confirmed they will lay out $3 million donated by customers and will continue to do so as the money comes in.
Personally I think its basically crap any carrier can’t forward the donation before the customer pays up because if its placed on the bill the customer will have to pay it when the bill comes in, and I can’t believe with all the revenue in billions carriers drag in they simply can’t front the donations, time some got their fingers out of their whatnots and got moving after all its not like they won’t get it back.