www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/17/1045330537167.html
Some are struggling single mums or recent university graduates loaded down with student loans and maxed-out credit cards. Others are childless couples seeking treatment for infertility. But the request is the same: they want people to send money via home pages that are becoming an American cottage industry on the web . Sceptical internet experts have even coined a term for the trend; Take Mandy Aylward, 23, a fashion major and waitress from Chicago who created a website this month to try to pay off nearly $US30,000 ($50,400) in school and credit-card debt. So far she says the project has only raised about $US160 - some of it from her mum. But she hasn't lost heart: "I am looking for a generous soul to get me out of a bind," she says. Brian Nolan, a self-described "real, 26-year-old, kindhearted, hardworking, aspiring paramedic" from Los Angeles County, says he's having more luck. More than $US40,000 in debt when he posted his site in November, Nolan says he now regularly receives more than $US1000 a week in donations. A TV producer turned "cyber-celebrity", Bosnak has since signed a publishing contract for her story and expects to finish her book this year. Some experts who study the internet question the claims from Bosnak and others that they're making money from their websites. Bosnak, who would respond to questions only by email, declined to offer financial records until her book is out. Nolan provided a bank statement showing weekly deposits to a cheque account - including some from PayPal, an online payment service - with payments to credit card and student loan companies. The key to his success, he says, has been creating a site that is visually appealing, updated regularly - and that makes for "fun, light" reading. Desperate sob stories, he says, tend to be a turnoff to many web surfers. Kent says donating money to such sites is like spending money on a magazine, or paying a cover charge to see a band. That's exactly why Meg Cadwell, a 23-year-old medical research administrator from Clearwater, Florida, sent a few dollars to both Bosnak and Kent - though she doubts she will donate on the web again. But she's worried that, too often, people in debt look for someone to bail them out - "whether it be winning the lottery or having some rich guy or woman step in," says Hoesly, a spokeswoman for the Million Dollar Round Table, an organisation of finance professionals. She says most people would be wiser to change the behaviour that got them in debt in the first place - and then create a plan to pay it off themselves. So far, she says she's raised about $US2000 of the $US12,000 she needs to pay for tuition and daycare, allowing her to leave her husband, who is aware of her plan. One visitor to her site, who said he had financial troubles because of a health problem, wrote: "I didn't go asking for money from strangers to help me. But many web surfers, Hawkins says, have been encouraging and regularly track her progress, even if they don't send a donation.
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