Good grief these crowdfunding things never go well... aside from the fact that the companies take a 30% cut of the money...
Where did you pull this number from? I am not a fan of GoFundMe, however, I also am not a fan of people trashing companies with total bullpucky. It has never even been close to 30%.
GoFundMe actually doesn't take a dime now automatically. It is strictly a tipping situation with the donor deciding how much GoFundMe gets. They used to take 7.9% + 30 cents a donation, of which almost 3% went to the credit card processing companies. We have had people start GoFundMes for our non-profit, so have a ton of experience with this and know exactly how much money we received vs what was donated.
As of November last year, GoFundMe changed their model. You donate your amount and then they ask you how much of a tip you want to give GoFundMe that will be added to your donation. The standard is 10%, but there is a drop down box that you can change your tip amount.
For instance, if you donate $100, there will be a drop down box, with the preset amount set at 10%, for a tip to GoFundMe. If you do not change this, your card will be charged $110 with $100 going to the recipient and your $10 "tip" going to GoFundMe. However, since it is a dropdown box, you can choose a different amount higher or lower or you can add in a custom amount. I recently donated to friend's family whose wife's body was found several states away after a long search, and I set the "tip" to 5%. I wanted to set it to 0%, but if they start losing money because they have to pay the credit card companies for processing costs, then those losses will be passed on to people (at least some of them) that really need the money.
As for using money in a way that was not detailed in the request description is fraudulent and can lead to some serious consequences. That money was not the fundraiser's but the homeless man's as that who they were fundraising for. If they did not like the way he was handling the money, they should have set up a trust.
Last article I read was that about half the money was used for the guy and the other $200,000 is either missing, cannot be accounted for, or is still being held in the couple's private accounts. At the very least they should have set up a separate account to deposit all the money into.