Who is Paul Dodds? Exploring the $150,000 fraudulent donation he made to Ryan Trahan's 1 penny 1 million meals challenge

Paul Dodds had been an active donor to Ryan Trahan's new challenge, which involves traversing the entirety of the U.S. to deliver a penny to Jimmy "MrBeast." Trahan's main goal, however, is to use the 30-day event as a fundraiser for Feeding America, an NGO that provides relief through its robust network of food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters.

Why a penny? Trahan recently discovered that the penny is going extinct.

The catch is that the YouTuber must start his journey with a single penny and trade his way through the country without any outside assistance. There is also a slight complication of the "Great Reset," where Ryan has to start over from $0.01 if his fundraiser reaches $50,000, or if someone, like MrBeast himself, donates the amount directly.

Paul, the scammer, was topping the donor list with his gradual donations of sizable sums. His name would always appear at the top of the list that Ryan displayed after each video, until one day, it just vanished without a clear reason.

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Paul Dodds allegedly refunded his donations to the cause

Ryan's content has always been about doing IRL challenges on YouTube, but this is his most ambitious endeavor yet. According to Social Blade, he sat at 7.23 million subscribers in May and has more than 9.5 million as of June 28, meaning his 1 penny 1 million meal videos have pulled in more than two million subscribers over the last month alone.

According to the donation page, Ryan raised a staggering $1.24 million for Feeding America, which is no mean feat. The endeavor has been a roaring success due to his viewers and donors supporting the video series with their hard-earned money. Paul Dodds appeared to be one of them when he started donating money.

Paul donated a total of $150,000 to the fundraiser, becoming the top donor. Following his ostensible generosity, Ryan even got him on a video call. On Day 11, Ryan got on a bus and told viewers that Paul messaged him:

"Paul Dodds, the current top donor of the fundraiser. He just contacted me and said, 'You free if I call or video call?' So I'm about to video call Paul Dodds.'"

On the call, the donor claimed that he would be sending another $100,000 on top of his previous 50k donation, prompting Ryan to shower him with gratitude by saying:

"Paul Dodds is the most philanthropic man in the world. I am just in shock right now, dude. If MrBeast is the villain, Paul Dodds is the hero."

But something changed on the 17th day. Suddenly, Paul's name was nowhere to be found on the list. In fact, Ryan has gone back and edited all of the previous videos (till the 16th) so that Paul's name on the list is blanked out.

Blanked out name from donor's list from Day 16 (Image via Ryan Trahan / YouTube)

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Social media reactions to Paul Dodds controversy

YouTube immediately realized that something was wrong when Ryan removed Paul's name from the series. He even heart-reacted to a comment on the video that talked about fraudulent behavior. As it stands, this is the most explicit Ryan has been about the topic in public:

Comment under Ryan's video about Paul (Image via Ryan Trahan/ YouTube)

Comment thread under Ryan's video about Paul (Image via Ryan Trahan/ YouTube)

It seems Dodds was actually being malicious and donated money only for clout, and had no real intention of helping the needy at all. The allegations gained more ground when his Twitter and all other social media accounts were deleted. This post on Ryan's subreddit even alleges that the man might have been a p*dophile:

There is even a Twitter account called "Paul Dodds Is A Scam," who tweeted about their own experience with the scammer:

By taking back the $150,000, Paul has made a name for himself as the man who scammed Ryan's fundraiser, and it is safe to say he will not be surfacing on social media any time soon. Everyone involved in this saga will no doubt be hoping YouTube clarifies exactly what went down, once the series concludes.