Released on: March 19, 2008, 3:40 am

Press Release Author: sunil sharma

Industry: Small Business

Press Release Summary: Yesterday I saw a mention in someone's email ezine about a
kind person who had an eBay auction with the proceeds going 100% to help victims of
the horrible Hurricane Katrina.







Press Release Body: Yesterday I saw a mention in someone's email ezine about a kind
person who had an eBay auction with the proceeds going 100% to help victims of the
horrible Hurricane Katrina.

It struck a chord with me because I had wanted to set up something similar, but
found that the "eBay Giving Works" charity program seems to be terribly flawed for
us small sellers. I had researched it the day before, eBay goes through Mission Fish
to handle the administrative tasks and distribution.

Here in a nutshell is how I understand it works. You set up an eBay auction and
pledge a percentage of the proceeds to go to a charity. You pick the one you like.
If the auction sells, the buyer pays you, and Mission Fish charges your credit card,
taking out $3.00 per transaction 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 noticed in the auction that I visited that the seller had set up a Dutch
auction, with 1000 "lots" available, each for $1.00 each, with the proceeds going
100% to her favorite charity that would get food to the Katrina victims. I was about
to place a bid for several $1.00 lots (a Dutch auction lets you "win" as many 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, maybe she had
found the way to get around the $10.00 per item restriction, and found that it was a
minimum $10.00 per auction. It would only make sense that it would work that way,
since Mission Fish charges the seller's credit card, if all 1000 lots sold, that
would be $1000 for the charity, Mission Fish would take $3.00 plus 3%, the seller
would collect (hopefully) the $1000 from the buyers, and all she would be on the
hook for would be the eBay fees. Those fees, plus her hard work, would 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 seller for EVERY ITEM that sells in a multiple-item auction (Dutch
auction).

So, if the seller had 1000 lots at $1.00 each, and they all sold, Mission Fish would
have charged her credit card on file for $10.00 for each lot, a total of $10,000.00!
And they would have taken their $3.00 + 3% fee for each of those 1000 lots, more
than $3,000.00 for their trouble!

At that point, I realized the seller either had deep pockets and was matching
contributions 10 to 1, or she misunderstood what would happen to her. I sent her an
email, and to end a long story, she indeed misunderstood, was obviously fairly upset
at the prospect of paying $10,000, and ended 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 both and
point them to this blog entry, or just write your own letter with your thoughts.

You can contact Mission Fish here:
http://www.missionfish.org/Help/contactus.jsp

eBay is always more difficult to contact, but you can try starting here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index.html

The other thing you could do is support 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 support 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 more charity in the future.

For those with homes, families, relatives or friends in the divested area, my hearts
and prayers go out to you. I hope this information will in some small way help
someone somewhere


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