Matthew C. Mousley

GoFundMe is waiving part of its refund policy that could have prevented Johnny Bobbit Jr.'s donors from requesting reimbursements, a spokesman for the company said Thursday.

The online fund-raising platform refunds individual contributions up to $1,000 if it determines that donations were misused, according to the company's "guarantee policy."

But there are exemptions in this policy and requirements that donors must meet to get paid back. Typically, donors must submit claims within 30 days of donating.

The campaign benefiting Bobbitt — which raised more than $400,000 from roughly 14,000 people — began accepting donations in November, nearly 10 months ago.

A GoFundMe spokesman said the 30-day policy will not apply to Bobbitt's donors. …

There are other limitations in GoFundMe's guarantee policy. Rather than offer refunds, GoFundMe may redirect donations to the intended beneficiary, or provide refunds in the form of credits redeemable for donations to other campaigns, according to the policy. …

The language in the service agreement is not unusual, said Matthew Mousley, a partner in the intellectual property practice at Duane Morris. Platforms like GoFundMe are not "set up in a way to ensure or guarantee all the private transactions happening on their platform are happening in a way that they can control and police."

By providing a guarantee policy, which also covers beneficiaries like Bobbitt, GoFundMe is actually going above what would be the "default" language in a platform service agreement, Mousley said. GoFundMe has given $20,000 to a bank account created by Bobbitt's legal team to provide assistance during the investigation. …

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