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All simply about AdSenseHurricane Katrina Donations Could be Galore Millions Much - eBay Sellers Try in Vain to Help
by:
Dennis Becker
Yesterday I saw a mention in someone’s email ezine simply about a kind person who had an eBay auction with the return going 100% to help victims of the atrocious Cyclone
Katrina.
It smitten a chord with me because I had wanted to set up thing
similar, but found that the “eBay Giving Works” charity program seems to be terribly blemished for us small sellers. I had researched it the day before, eBay goes through Mission Fish to handle the body
tasks and distribution.
Here in a shell
is how I understand it works. You set up an eBay auction and pledge a percentage of the return to go to a charity. You pick the one you like. If the auction sells, the purchaser pays you, and Mission Fish charges your credit card, taking out $3.00 per dealing for their fees, plus 3% to cover credit card fees. That’s reasonable, they need to cover their overhead and payroll expenses. Then Mission Fish sends the balance to the charity.
The minimum donation per item has to be $10.00. Again, so far so good, I can understand that.
Now, I detected
in the auction that I visited that the marketer had set up a dutch auction, with 1000 “lots” available, each for $1.00 each, with the return going 100% to her favorite charity that would-be get food to the Katrina victims. I was simply about to place a bid for several $1.00 lots (a dutch auction lets you “win” as galore of the item as you like, all at the same price).
Then it hit me, why couldn’t I do the same kind of dutch auction, possibly she had found the way to get about the $10.00 per item restriction, and found that it was a minimum $10.00 per auction. It would-be only do sense that it would-be activity that way, since Mission Fish charges the seller’s credit card, if all 1000 lots sold, that would-be be $1000 for the charity, Mission Fish would-be take $3.00 plus 3%, the marketer would-be collect (hopefully) the $1000 from the buyers, and all she would-be be on the hook for would-be be the eBay fees. Those fees, plus her hard work, would-be be her personal contribution.
So I went back to eBay and Mission Fish and researched the deal again. I found out that sure enough, in a multiple item auction, Mission Fish requires a $10.00 donation from the marketer for EVERY ITEM that sells in a multiple-item auction (dutch auction).
So, if the marketer had 1000 lots at $1.00 each, and they all sold, Mission Fish would-be have charged her credit card on file for $10.00 for each lot, a total of $10,000.00! And they would-be have taken their $3.00 + 3% fee for each of those 1000 lots, much than $3,000.00 for their trouble!
At that point, I accomplished the marketer either had deep pockets and was matching contributions 10 to 1, or she misunderstood what would-be happen to her. I sent her an email, and to end a long story, she so
misunderstood, was evidently fairly upset at the prospect of paying $10,000, and complete the auction early.
Now, I’d like my readers to do one of two things. If you think that eBay and Mission Fish are mishandling the charity program, as I do, please contact one or several and point them to this web log entry, or simply write your own letter with your thoughts.
You can contact Mission Fish here:
http://www.missionfish.org/Help/contactus.jsp
eBay is always much difficult to contact, but you can try starting here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index.html
The another thing you could do is keep the eBay seller’s cause, she had to end the auction but she took the trouble to set up a web page for donations, you can access and keep it here:
http://www.flipidy.com/secondharvest.htm
Perhaps with enough pressure on Mission Fish, they’ll get together with eBay and allow dutch auctions to be counted as a single donation, instead of multiple individual items, and encourage much charity in the future.
For those with homes, families, relatives or friends in the devasted area, my hearts and prayers go out to you. I hope this information wish in several small way help person somewhere.
Just simply about the author:
Dennis Becker is author of a regular web log simply about several route of earning money on the Internet, titled suitably enough "Success On The Internet". You can find it at:
http://www.fantastic-ebooks.com/index.php
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