SF Express denies rumor it held back quake donations

SF Express, a major domestic private courier, denied on Wednesday a recent rumor that it deliberately retained donations to earthquake-stricken areas, stating that all non-designated donations will be transferred to local authorities via its own charity organization.

"One parcel was accidentally mishandled," Chen Huan, public relations manager of SF Express, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

SF Charity Foundation under SF Express normally receives only non-designated donations - donations without a specified recipient - and then forwards the materials to local official donation centers. But Chen admitted that a parcel originating from Wuhan and intended for a local rescue team had been classified wrong and sent to SF Charity Foundation.

Chen said the parcel had been transferred Saturday to the donation center in Tianquan, a county of Ya'an, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, where a 7.0 earthquake on April 20 killed nearly 200 people.

A Tianquan donation center official surnamed Wang confirmed with the Global Times on Wednesday that they had received donations from SF Charity Foundation.

SF Express launched a free courier service to the quake-hit areas starting April 21, and had received 2,608 tons of donated materials through the service as of Sunday, its Weibo stated.

"We apologize to the donor and will arrange a new courier in his name to the quake-hit areas," Chen said, but she denied media allegations that SF Charity Foundation deliberately held back the donations for tax deduction purposes.

The courier delivery company was suspected of intercepting the donations of customers, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on April 29, citing a privately organized rescue team that is a partner of One Foundation, a nonprofit charity established by Chinese movie star Jet Li in 2007.

"We are still investigating," said the leader of the rescue team, who preferred to remain anonymous. He said he had received several inquiries from donors about the materials sent to the team by SF Express.

The team leader said that they simply want to give their donors a clear answer about the whereabouts of the donations, otherwise the donors might believe they had appropriated the materials without distributing them to the people in need.

There has been a credibility crisis and strongly negative online public opinion toward nonprofit charity organizations over recent years, especially the Red Cross Society of China, whose reputation has suffered from scandals surrounding suspected corruption.