More than half of convoy donors who haven’t received refunds are Americans

More than half of the donors to the GiveSendGo convoy protest crowdfunding campaign who have not yet received refunds are Americans, CBC News has learned.

CBC analyzed documents tabled by the commission of inquiry into the convoy protest that paralyzed downtown Ottawa for three weeks, and the donations data made public when the GiveSendGo Freedom Convoy crowdfunding website was hacked.

That analysis shows that an estimated 59 per cent of donations — accounting for 46 per cent of the GiveSendGo Freedom Convoy money that was frozen by a Canadian court order — came from donors with postal codes indicating they lived in the United States. An estimated 35 per cent of the donations and 50 per cent of the frozen funds came from donors with Canadian postal codes.

The remainder of the money from the crowdfunding campaign, now sitting in an escrow account, came from donors outside Canada or the U.S.

The analysis by CBC News also sheds new light on a question that has gone unanswered for months: why have some donors to the GiveSendGo Freedom Convoy crowdfunding campaign reported receiving refunds, while others still have no idea what happened to their money?

The answer is that whether someone got a refund — or whether their money is part of the $3.4 million Cdn frozen in connection with a multi-million-dollar class action lawsuit launched on behalf of Ottawa residents — depends on when they made their donation.

Documents tabled by the commission of inquiry into the government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act reveal that while there was a single Freedom Convoy crowdfunding campaign, at different times the money flowed into different accounts set up with GiveSendGo’s payment processor Stripe.

In summaries of interviews with commission counsel, GiveSendGo co-founder Jacob Wells and Chad Eros, a Saskatchewan accountant who helped set up a non-profit corporation for the protest organizers, described the struggles they experienced while setting up the GiveSendGo fundraiser.

One fundraising campaign, two accounts

Eros told the commission he was having difficulty finding a Canadian financial institution that would open an account for the corporation to allow it to receive the crowdfunding campaign donations.

Wells said that to help the Freedom Convoy campaign launch, he offered to allow it to send donations into his own Stripe account.

The data shows that when Eros succeeded in setting up a Stripe account in his name for the corporation on Feb. 7, the donations began to flow into that account — with a pause at one point on Feb. 8, where Stripe’s automated systems temporarily halted the flow and donations once again went to Wells’ Stripe account. They then began flowing again to the account set up by Eros.

Both accounts received donations from Canadians, Americans and other convoy protest supporters located around the world.

A review of the donations data — which was circulated publicly after the GiveSendGo Freedom Convoy crowdfunding website was accessed by an unknown hacker back in February — shows that two different “service providers” are listed in connection with donations.

On Feb. 7 at 8:40 p.m., the code for the “service provider” switched to 23347. On Feb. 8 at 6:12 a.m., it switched to the code for the previous service provider, then back to 23347 at 6:26 p.m.

Eros told CBC News he did not recognize the service provider code but said the times correspond to the period his Stripe account was receiving the donations.

During the time that account was receiving donations — and up to the evening of Feb. 10, when the hacker obtained the data that they made public — the numbers show 31,651 donations totalling $2.7 million US flowed into that account. The account continued to receive donations after that, but those donations were not part of the data made public.

Donations that flowed to Eros’s Stripe account ranged in size from a $90,000 US donation from a Californian businessman to 613 donations of $5 each.

Among the $1.4 million US in donations from Canadians that flowed to the account during that time, 34.9 per cent came from Ontario, 22.5 per cent came from British Columbia, 19.8 per cent came from Alberta and 6.9 per cent came from Quebec.

American donations were more spread out. Of the $1.3 million US in American donations, 19.4 per cent came from donors with California postal codes, 7.9 per cent came from Texas, 6.7 per cent came from Florida, 4.8 per cent came from Washington State and 4.1 per cent came from New York State.

Stripe turned the money in Eros’s account over to the escrow agent holding the money frozen under the terms of the Mareva injunction issued in connection with the class action suit. While the account received $3.7 million Cdn in donations, Stripe turned $3.4 million Cdn over to the escrow agent after deducting fees and chargebacks.

Meanwhile, money donated to the crowdfunding campaign while donations were flowing to Wells’ U.S.-based Stripe account was not turned over to the escrow agent. That money was instead refunded to donors in March, regardless of the donors’ country of origin, Wells told CBC News.

Eros said that if he hadn’t opened a Stripe account, more donors would have gotten their money back by now.

“If I would have never opened a Canadian Stripe account, everyone would have been refunded,” said Eros.

CBC News reached out to five of the top donors in Canada and five of the top donors in the U.S.

None of the three donors who responded had received a refund or had any idea what had happened to the money they donated to the convoy protest.

New Brunswick businessman Brad Howland, who donated $75,000 US to the crowdfunding campaign, said he doesn’t know where his money is now. He said he’s still grateful to the protesters for “changing the tide of unwarranted mandates in our country.”

“The purpose was to support costs for those on the ground peacefully protesting for freedom to restore our country back to the way it was,” wrote Howland, pointing out that his Feb. 9 donation was made before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.

“I am not expecting to be reimbursed and yet still hope it goes for support of those truckers that were there.”

London, Ont. businessman Holden Rhodes donated $25,000 US to the crowdfunding campaign. According to the data, his donation was registered early on the morning of Feb. 8. He has not received a refund.

“I wanted my funds to go to the various people who stood in protest to the mandates, lockdowns and numerous other restrictions,” wrote Rhodes in an e-mail response. “I would still like for that to happen as there were thousands of people who sacrificed a great deal to try to protect our rights and freedoms that are enshrined in our Constitution.”

‘Derek would like the money refunded’

Tampa, Florida-area businessman Derek Woryn confirmed through an assistant that he hasn’t received a refund for the $5,000 US donation the data shows he made late in the evening of Feb. 7, after the donations began flowing to Eros’s Stripe account.

“Derek would like the money refunded back to his card,” she wrote.

That might not happen soon — or ever.

Ottawa lawyer Paul Champ filed the class action suit on behalf of Ottawa residents who lived through the convoy protest’s occupation of the city’s downtown. He said it could be late next year before the court even decides whether to certify the class action.

If the class action is certified, the case will then have to make its way through the courts — unless there is an out of court settlement.

Champ recently amended the class action to add trucking companies and anyone who donated to the convoy protest after Feb. 4, naming Howland as a representative of the donor class.

On Feb. 4, GoFundMe cancelled the initial multimillion crowdfunding campaign after concluding that the protest by truckers and their supporters in Ottawa had violated the company’s terms of service. Donations began to flow to the Freedom Convoy campaign on rival crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo.

“Any person donating funds to the Freedom Convoy truckers on or after February 4, 2022, knew or ought to have known that the truckers were engaged in tortious or illegal activity and were substantially and unreasonably interfering with the residents, businesses and workers of downtown Ottawa,” says the notice to amend the class action claim.

Champ said donors should have distinguished between the issues animating the protest and what the protesters were actually doing on the streets of Ottawa.

“I don’t have a lot of sympathy for donors on this one,” Champ said. “I really don’t.”

“You know, it was for all the world to see what was happening on the streets of Ottawa. People could have supported the issues but then said, ‘You know what? I don’t support what they’re doing there, you know, gridlocking streets, honking train horns and air horns … 20 hours a day, idling outside of people’s homes

“I think, if they took a look and realized that’s directly what they’re supporting, they would have understood that that was the wrong thing to do.”