A London bonds trader has set up a charity Web page in a tongue-in-cheek effort to raise money for debt-ridden Greece.

The page on the donations website JustGiving (www.justgiving.com/savegreece) asks people to help collect 100 million pounds ($150 million) for the country, which has huge debts and is struggling to finance its budget deficit.

Greece is in deep financial crisis, Jim Croft, the trader who set up the page, wrote in his request for donations.

Donating here will go a long way to helping those poor people who have lived beyond their means for the last 10 years and are now struggling to pay their bills ... So please dig deep and donate now.

So far about 400 pounds has been raised, mostly from other people who work in the financial markets, judging by several of the comments accompanying the donations. The money collected will go to the charity Oxfam.

I set it up as a bit of a giggle on a quiet Friday morning but then people started donating money, which is great, Croft, who works for Standard Bank in London, told Reuters.

It all goes to charity in the end, so that's good.

Those who donate do not have to give their true names, which has led to contributions from people pretending to be the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, or posing as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

This is my personal contribution, not too sure I will be able to convince my employer though, wrote someone calling himself Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, who donated 10 pounds.

The European Union and the IMF may be called on to lend money to Greece to overcome its problems if Athens decides it needs outside help. Greece needs to raise about 20 billion euros ($27 billion) from the financial markets to finance its debts.

Some of the comments make reference to other countries with deficit problems. A donation of 10 pounds has been made by someone calling himself Gordon Brown.

Happy to give money to any cause, says the fake British prime minister, who faces an election on May 6 that may see him lose office. Might need it back in four weeks though.

Germany