SHAWNEE, Kan. — A gun shop owner feared she’d lose thousands of dollars she had hoped to use to relocate her business after her husband was murdered in their store in January.
Forty-four-year-old Jon Bieker was shot to death while trying to defend his wife and their business after police say four armed men burst in to rob the place. Thousands of dollars have been donated to help widow Becky Bieker in the aftermath, but she was struggling to collect the donations from GoFundMe.
An initial problem she encountered was that GoFundMe does not talk to people on the phone; she had to correspond with a customer service representative online, which complicated the issue. Becky was hoping to use those donations to relocate from the current shop, a place she says whenever she walks in, she sees what happened all over again.
“I have to keep going. It’s not always easy and there are days where I will call someone and say, ‘I can’t do it today. I need you to tell me I can,'” Becky told FOX 4 on Tuesday.
While she fights to recover from the deadly shooting, the last thing she wanted to deal with was trouble with collecting donations from GoFundMe, something that’s supposed to be easy.
“This company GoFundMe is supposed to be out there to help people, whether it is to create some dream they have or get through some major life problem they have, some struggle, and I know I can’t be the only one having a problem with their system,” Becky said.
Over the past three months, the creator of the GoFundMe account has tried dozens of times to transfer the account to her, and it just wasn’t working.
FOX 4 reached out to GoFundMe and received the same response that Becky said she had been receiving. If the money went uncollected much longer, it was going to be credited back to the donors. Becky said she needs the near $5,000 in donations, but at this point, decided to share her struggles on principal.
“I want people to know that if they have a problem, they can fight back. They can speak out, that’s what our business is about. So it made sense that I fight back on this as well, and that I help someone else if they are in that same situation,” Becky said.
After going back and forth with a representative at GoFundMe for the majority of Tuesday, shortly after 5 p.m., FOX 4 received an email from the company that Becky Bieker had been successfully added to the account.
Then, moments later, she followed up with an email saying that GoFundMe had reached out to her asking her to confirm her information. So it appears that the problem has been solved, but FOX 4 will follow this story until she has the money in hand.