Donor protection

The Shout A Mate Guarantee

Give with confidence. If a campaign turns out to be fraudulent, we make it right.

What’s covered
  • Fraudulent campaigns — the story or the cause was never real
  • Identity fraud — someone raised funds pretending to be a person or group they aren't
  • Policy violations — campaigns that breach our terms after going live
What’s NOT covered
  • A campaign that simply doesn't reach its funding goal
  • Change-of-mind refunds once a donation has been made
  • Disagreements over how an organiser prioritises genuinely-related expenses
  • How an organiser actually spends the funds — we verify identity and review the campaign, but we don't monitor spending

How it works

From a flagged concern to a resolution

You flag a concern

Sign in, pick the campaign, and tell us what's wrong and why.

The campaign is paused

Donations pause immediately while we look into it — no new funds move either way.

We investigate

We review the campaign, the organiser's verification, and your concern.

You're refunded if fraudulent

If we confirm fraud, your donation is refunded in full — never taken back from the organiser's other supporters.

What it costs you

We take 0% of your donation. The only cost is the fee for processing the card, and that is charged by Stripe rather than by us. Donors are asked if they’d like to add a voluntary tip to cover it.

On a $100 donation

Donor adds a $2.03 tip
$100.00to the campaign

The donor pays $102.03. The tip covers processing, so the donation arrives whole.

No tip added
$98.00to the campaign

Stripe’s $2.00 processing fee comes out of the payout.

If a campaign’s tips don’t cover its processing fees, the difference comes out of that campaign’s payout — never charged back to donors. Organisers see the exact figure before they withdraw. This happens most often on international cards, which cost more to process than a tip sized for an Australian one covers.

Stripe’s Australian rates, exclusive of GST: 1.7% + $0.30 on an Australian card,3.5% + $0.30 on an international one — which would leave $96.20 of an untipped $100. The card type isn’t known until payment, so the fee recorded against any real donation comes from Stripe itself, not from this example.

Who stands behind this

Shout A Mate is operated by Valliers Group, an Australian company (ABN 71 697 537 741). Donations are processed by Stripe, which also handles organiser identity and bank-account verification.

Reach a human at support@shoutamate.org.

The Guarantee is written and honoured by Andrew Valentin, Founder. If you think a campaign is not what it claims to be, it reaches a person.

Spotted something that doesn’t look right?

Get in touch and we’ll look into it. Every campaign is reviewed before it goes live, but if something slips through, tell us straight away.

Sign in to report a concern about a campaign.

Sign in to continue

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