Monday, February 24, 2003		Feature

Cyberbegging for donations

THEY make their pleas for help via the World Wide Web (WWW). Some are struggling single moms or recent college graduates loaded down with student loans and maxed-out credit cards. Others are childless couples seeking treatment for infertility. One site even makes a pitch for a cat named Buster.

The tales of woe vary. But the request is the same: They want persons to send money via home pages that are becoming an American cottage industry on the Web. Skeptical Internet experts have even coined a term for the trend; they call it cyberbegging.

Take Mandy Aylward, a 23-year-old fashion major and waitress from Chicago who created a Website earlier this month to try to pay off nearly $ 30,000 in school and credit card debt.

So far she says the project has only raised nearly $ 160 some of it from her mom. 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, kin hearted, hardworking, aspiring paramedic" from Los Angeles County, says he’s having more luck. More than $ 40,000 in debt when he posted his site in November, Nolan says now regularly receives more than $ 1,000 a week in donations.

"I’m sure I could pay off my own debt someday," Nola says. "But why not take the help now if I can get it?"

Cyberbegging started gaining momentum late last year after a 29-year-old New Yorker named Karyn Bosnak claimed that members of the public sent enough money to SaveKaryn.com to help pay off more than $ 20,000 in debt.