When the Guardian contacted the alleged conman about the allegations he refused to share his medical records, telling the publication, \u201cI don\u2019t owe any of these haters anything and refuse to bow to the bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruch had fundraised to travel to Australia and New Zealand before his death, catching the attention of Farrier, who has extensively covered several other supposed conmen over the years.<\/p>\n
One person told Farrier the native Texan would not leave them alone until they loaned him money, threatening to drive to their home and remain there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe total that I gave is so humiliating, I hate myself for believing him and thinking that a human being needed help. I hate myself for taking away from myself as well as my kids, to provide for him, thinking he really was sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
The local journalist addressed Ruch\u2019s death in a second Webworm piece, stating that he is \u201cstill processing it\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought this was important, given he was coming to New Zealand next. I thought it was important that people knew his history, given he was asking for money. I still think that,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t change the fact that this is objectively horrible news. It\u2019s horrible when anyone dies. Doug obviously had a troubled history. While estranged, he had a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doug Ruch travelled to various states across the US to volunteer his time, fundraising for the travel costs through GoFundMe. Photo \/ Open Hand<\/p>\n
The \u201cDying to Serve\u201d tour involved Ruch attempting to do an act of volunteering in all 50 US states, a mission he raised US$230,000 ($385,750) for through crowdfunding app GoFundMe.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, due to the broken United States healthcare system, Doug has spent his life savings just trying to survive these last few years,\u201d the website reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe realises it\u2019s a big ask as we all have our own burdens to bear but Doug truly believes that he can and will do a lot of good with the time he has left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruch\u2019s GoFundMe has now issued refunds to donors who have raised complaints about Ruch, and the \u201cDying to Serve\u201d fundraiser has since been deleted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Guardian contacted the alleged conman about the allegations he refused to share his medical records, telling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,51,4057,2534,23552,2562,84954,1359,6179,7126,42834,3561,40371,8418,108849,305,78,5844,194,5158,111,43,139,69,44549,29483,61,3040,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-301139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-auckland","10":"tag-behind","11":"tag-cancer","12":"tag-claimed","13":"tag-claims","14":"tag-conman","15":"tag-described","16":"tag-died","17":"tag-dies","18":"tag-dying","19":"tag-fraud","20":"tag-fundraiser","21":"tag-fundraising","22":"tag-gofundme","23":"tag-have","24":"tag-in","25":"tag-journalist","26":"tag-kiwi","27":"tag-man","28":"tag-new-zealand","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-newzealand","31":"tag-nz","32":"tag-respected","33":"tag-serve","34":"tag-to","35":"tag-us","36":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}