Using the title, Guo posted pictures of her luxury cars and designer handbags on a personal microblog; and although the Red Cross and Guo both deny any connection to each other, mud from the affair has stuck.

The new online system was supposed to change the public's perception and usher in a new era of transparency, with the society releasing information about donations from January 11, 2010, up to and including those for relief efforts for the earthquake in Yushu county, Qinghai on April 14 that year.

One of the main claims of the platform was that would allow individuals who donated more than 100,000 yuan (HK$121,000) and organisations that gave more than 500,000 yuan to find out exactly which projects their money helped.

But problems followed the launch almost immediately. Information on the progress of the Yushu projects was not included, and many searches for donations by celebrities did not seem to tally.

For example, internet users said that when they did a search on the system for popular actress Fan Bingbing two results came up, both donations of just 200 yuan. An employee at Fan Bingbing's studio told the Qilu Evening News that Fan did donate 200,000 yuan to earthquake relief efforts but the money went to the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, not the Red Cross.

Searches for 'Cheng Long', Jacky Chan's name in Putonghua, were equally confusing. Chan's name turned up six results on April 23 last year of 10 fen each time. A woman in Zhangjiagang in Jiangsu province later told Beijing Daily her son Cheng Long had made the donations to test whether his money had been received.

Other celebrity donations to Yushu reconstruction efforts appeared on the system as having been given before the April 14 disaster occurred. The system showed, for example, that actor Andy Lau Tak-wah made his gift on March 30.

The published data on donations made by other organisations also did not match previous claims. Thirteen results appeared for the Jet Li One Foundation. The results were for donations ranging from 100 yuan to 15,000 yuan, but the foundation said it had donated 2 million yuan in funds and kind by April 21 last year.

A search for Jet Li generated three entries and total donations of 930 yuan. On top of that, a donation made by the Japanese Red Cross Society to a boarding school and clinic in Yushu county appeared in the system as 23 per cent lower than the contribution detailed on the Japanese charity's website, the Beijing Times reported. Then there was the 200,000 yuan that mainland actor Huang Xiaoming donated on March 31 last year for the drought in the south, according to ifeng.com. The system gave no indication of what project the money had benefited.

'There will no doubt be problems during the test run,' the society announced on its microblog at the launch of the system. 'We sincerely hope the public will give us feedback via the system so that we will improve based on that.'

It did not have to wait long. After the public and media quickly highlighted the discrepancies, the society pledged to improve the system to distinguish between donors with the same names.

In response to the questions about the Andy Lau donation, Wang Rupeng, secretary general of the Red Cross Society of China, said donations made after January 11 were also included in the Yushu earthquake totals, even though they weren't necessarily linked, the China Youth Daily reported.

Wang also apologised about the One Foundation mismatches, saying the three donations were made not by Li, but by anonymous donors in the name of the One Foundation.

The society added that some entries may have been left out of the tallies due to the huge amount of data and they would check with its accounting departments about the discrepancies. It has admitted that it misused public funds but denied any corruption.

The new system has put the spotlight on some even bigger questions about the society's administration and the adequacy of government oversight, which is mandated under national law. According to the accounts, the charity earmarked 5.83 million yuan for post-quake 'project supervision'. Internet users have asked why the society needed so much money to oversee projects in a county of 300,000 residents.

Wang said the funds were earmarked for administrative oversight in accordance with official guidelines, but not all of it had been spent.

'The expenditure has not been made,' Wang said. 'The figure will be made public and subject to public scrutiny when the [inspection of the reconstruction] is complete.'

The even bigger issue is the lack of information about donations received by the affiliated Chinese Red Cross Foundation and local Red Cross societies.

The society's apparent poor handling of its finances and the public scandals have had a direct impact on public giving. Last month the Shenzhen Red Cross Society received just 100 yuan in donations, and a hospital under the Red Cross Society in Foshan, Guangdong province, had no donations in July - in sharp contrast to the 886,000 yuan it reportedly received this year up to June.

When asked if other local branches had registered a sharp drop in donations, the society said in a written response that they hadn't compiled recent statistics of donations received by local Red Cross societies.

'The reason we received much less in donations this year was because of the Yushu earthquake last year,' the society said in its written response.

Zhao Xu, from the China Centre for Public-Private Partnerships, said the society's efforts did amount to progress compared with the murkiness of the previous system, and the charity should not worry about the public raising questions.

'Transparency and public scrutiny is the only way to win back public trust,' Zhao said.