Will the actual amounts being given to the charity be made clearer to both sellers and buyers? Not only should sellers be made fully aware about the minimum donation/charges and the administration fees, but buyers on all charity auctions should know that if they bid £5 on an item, only £3 of that will go to the charity after the processing fee has been taken off. If a seller opts to pass on 100% of the final price to the charity, buyers may assume that this means all the money will go to the charity, when under this scheme this is not the case - this should be made clear to the buyer who is donating the money.
Will these auctions be looked at any closer / quicker than other auctions if reported? If people are using a charity's name listing 100 BINs at 99p plus £50 postage and passing on 20% of the proceeds, will they be pulled any quicker than other auctions when reported to stop the charity scheme being abused?
This is a local board for local people. There is nothing for you here.
We are already making note of the many questions raised on other threads but if you are feeling helpful, it wouldn't hurt to post your question again here for our benefit.
But whay hasn't there been a response from either Missionfish or Ebay with regard to the other threads and questions raised? Why did we have to wait for a workshop to be set up?
And will you be answering questions that may arise during the Workshop, or only answering questions that have been submitted in advance?
Some questions for the Workshop (or you could provide an answer on this thread or the thread that I started this morning !).
1 Will eBay be making charitable donations to match the sellers donation percentage - i.e. if a seller states 100% Charity Donation, will eBay donate 100% of the associated Listing and Final Value fees.
2 Will PayPal be making charitable donations to match the sellers donation percentage - i.e. if a seller states 100% Charity Donation, will PayPal donate 100% of the associated payment processing fee.
3 Will eBay and PayPal donations be made in the same month as the fees are collected from the seller ?
4 If not, why not ?
5 What measures will eBay take to ensure that the eBay4charity Ribbon is not brought into disrepute by dubious auctions (see cheerypumpkins thread).
10 Is there a mechanism by which eBay can notify sellers about charities within their geographic region that have registered with ebay4charity - e.g. sellers in Northern Ireland notified about the Blind Centre.
Jamie, are there plans afoot for ALL charity auctions have to be brought in line with the way that they are run in the US ie. either through Missionfish, or that they have to sumit written permission from the charity, stating what is being auctioned, when it is being auctioned, and post the headed and signed permission letter from the charity on the auction page, or are you going to let charity selling continue in the same vein as it always has been here (and very successfully I may say!)
Jamie, 1, have mission fish and ebay got a contract that states mission fish will get the monopoly on ebay either now or in time please pushing out the independant fund raisers.
2, are mission fish going to be be pushed as the safe way as paypal has been or will they stay neutral on this.
3, are ebay going to pull mission fish auctions that do not comply with the rules faster than other ebay auctions.
4, are mission fish going to provide a proper customer care service such as a phone number to ring and do away with the automatic emails to questions. ( and yes i have had one)
5, are mission fish going to produce accounts to show where the money is going. When will the us ones be out.
6, are ebay going to change the misleading info they give to bidders on the link from the home page and be honest enough to tell bidders about the dealy in payments and the fees involved.
7, is the problem sorting with people using mission fish going to be better than the us whos boards are full of problems. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AN OFFICAL FAMILY ADOPTION OF A CHIMP IS UP FOR GRABS LATER TONIGHT. ALL the funds go to the charity, every penny. Independant of missionnfish, so no admin fee deducted and no three month wait for charity to get their money. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
are the questions going to be answered in politian style in that no straight yes or no.
and can we see a copy of the contract between ebay and mission fish ?? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AN OFFICAL FAMILY ADOPTION OF A CHIMP IS UP FOR GRABS LATER TONIGHT. ALL the funds go to the charity, every penny. Independant of missionnfish, so no admin fee deducted and no three month wait for charity to get their money. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do a charity auction 4 times a year for the hospice in which my sister passed away, I do not want to have any monies going into anyone elses pockets but theirs. So my question is, can I still do these auctions outside of missionfish?
will e bay be stating the percentage they will be paying for the charity donation as it is clear what customers have to. In this horrible world we live in that causes the needs for such charities to exist in the first place, would it not be a wonderful gesture for E Bay to donate the money anonymously and therefore not requiring them to have a large cheque on display in front of the cameras? Also where Live Aid was concerned and certainly with other well known charities, one is able to arrange for all donation to go to charity minus tax and admin fee charges. I find the use of a possible £2.00 charge outrageous given i am a regular seller who is not in business and will therefore, should this go ahead, pay money directly to the charity itself thus cutting out the middleman. this i believe is a sad day for E Bay who have a very generous community spirit and may now therefore decline from participating in the future. Finally i concur with the previous question....are we only now to see benefits to charities chosen by E Bay alone?
I have asked elsewhere and had no reply, but here goes.
What are the projected running costs of the Missionfish UK charity for its first year?
Presumably its accounts will claim credit for the total sum passing through its hands, in order to make the accounts look reasonable.
Is UK Missionfish intending to be anything other that a MIDDLEMAN?
if so, how much does M-F expect to generate for charity that is not the product of an ebay auction, less handling costs? In other words - what is the added value, and to whom will it go?
What will M-F do if private members do not play ball, and they find themselves acting only as a collection agency AT NIL COST for main charity sellers? In this scenario they would go bankrupt and the trustees would presumably be in trouble if they happened to visit the UK.
How,much is M-F UK expecting to pay in fees to M_F in the USA, or to POLF in the USA for its IT and other services in the first year? (The figure in the business plan would do).
If what I do on ebay is trading, then I should never have to pay tax again.
here's one I asked henry on another thread - still waiting for a straight answer....
Can you confirm that there is no commitment or current intention to restrict charity auctions to those run under the auspices of M-F at a future date?
A simple "Yes I can confirm that" would be sufficient. if of course the answer is in the negative - it would be helpful if ebay had the guts to come clean and tell us its plans in plain English, without any woolly phrases or terminological exactitude.
I am beginning to think that Henry should be in politics.
If what I do on ebay is trading, then I should never have to pay tax again.
I would like a straight YES/NO answer to this question please:
Will Missionfish/Ebay for Charity "cancel/pull" any charity listing that is not "registered" with Missionfish but are "well-known-popular" Q&A board posters who regularly raise large amounts of money (at their own expense regarding paying for ebay/paypal fees & postage/packaging) as non-registered (ie., local) charities? - examples are The Charity Sig Girls, Mozart & Amity to name but three.
Will auctions, where the money is being donated to the Seller's own choice of charity/good cause and which the seller has decided NOT to have MF involved in, be automatically pulled by ebay? Straight Yes or NO please.
Jamie, I am a low value seller, so I can't really get involved in any charity donations, although I like to. Wouldn't it be better for seller like me to be able to give a percentage of the sale rather than a minimum. My average sell is only £3.45!!
Also I have a strict policy to charity donations, and there are certain charities I don't believe in donating to, will be given a chance to donate to what we want to, or are eBay going name the charities. If so how are you going to do it? Once a month support for a particular charity?
Why not give us an opportuntity to donate a percentage of our sales to whatever we want, i.e. we can specify a charity, give an example at the moment I am sending a percentage of my sales to the Hurrican Katrina Autism Relief home & Medicines San Frontier who are still working in South East Asia. Now those two I will support as long as I can, but something like a National Charity, be it a child's charity that does a lot of good, doesn't quite warrant the same level of aid as A disasters fund charity...
I for one want to choose where the money goes, not to be told by eBay what to support.
"5 What measures will eBay take to ensure that the eBay4charity Ribbon is not brought into disrepute by dubious auctions (see cheerypumpkins thread)."
Now a quick look at the auctions already sporting the charity ribbon, there are already quite a few "dubious" ones and at least one that violates listing policies.
As you are going to be actively promoting ebay for charity and Missionfish as the preferred way to sell items for charity, won't it be a good idea to have someone have a look at these auctions, rather than relying on honest ebay members to report them.?
Surely if you can spend time, effort and money into promoting this new venture, then some time should be spent checking what you are actually promoting as "safe" auctions?
"During the launch phase of eBay for Charity the eBay community can support BBC Children in Need, the BBC's corporate charity which raises funds for disadvantaged children and young people in the UK. Soon after the BBC Children in Need Appeal night on 18th November, the eBay for Charity programme will be extended to a wider range of charities."
Am I right in thinking that if we want to support another charity and advertise it on the UK site, we can do so by listing it on the US site and making the UK option available, so it will show up on the UK search from your advertised UK link?
I've just been browsing and spotted a seller displaying the ribbon on 9 of her listings - alot of these are not going to make it to over £5 - one is at 19p.
She is a new seller and has displayed she will include 25% to charity.
Am I now to understand that she has to pay £2 admin on all 9 auctions - plus a further £3 minimum donation (regardless of bid price)for each auction plus 25% of bid price- making it the £5 minimum plus?
And could you explain this:
*Every penny donated goes towards helping children and young people, as all administration costs, promotional materials, and salaries are paid for from the interest accumulated on the money raised.*
Every penny of 25% of 19p? Becasue that will be what was donated by the buyer - the seller will then have to donate to make up the £5 minimum.
Firstly - someone said that NO INTEREST was raised - and how much do you determine how much to take out of the interest raised to cover admin costs etc?- and what happens to the *extra* raised? WIll that go through to the charity? I assume it must as MF is a non profit organisation, isn't it? As far as I was aware the admin costs came from the £2 (from the £5 minimum) NOT from interest raised on the £5 minimum.
How can £2 admin come out of an auction that may only finish at 19p? Surely all charity auctions should be advised to START AT £5 MINIMUM otherwise sellers are going to be needing charity assistance themselves!
Is the seller then to have to pay £5 plus 25% of 19p taken from her account per auction? Will you take it without consulting the seller - who got carried away with the whole missionfish/ebay for charity flow?
Surely this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
I forsee a lot of threads where sellers did not understand fully - and thought that just 25% of the bid price went to charity.
THIS IS A BAD IDEA AND IF ABOVE IS RIGHT THEN VERY MISLEADING
# seller has 10 auctions - all end at £1 and donates 25% on each
# seller has to pay from own pocket £4.75 for each of 10 auctions (total £47.50)- to meet £5 minimum
# £47.50 + £2.50 (£50) goes to MF from buyers and seller which collects interest over 2 months
# MF take from the interest raised (as above statement on auction to pay for pr and admin etc)
# 2 months later MF sends £30 to said charity.(after taking £2 further admin from each auction)
So end of day - seller has forked out for - item, ebay costs, pay pal costs, postage costs, packing costs, AND £47.50
bidders have forked out £10 - which £2.50 of that goes to charity
And charity gets £30 2 months after auction ends. MF get £20 plus interest raised on the £50?
Infact yes bidders do get 100% of their percentage donated - it's just the seller that has to make up the difference should they not be able to make the required amount.
Is that right?
Is this not more sensible ebay?
# seller has 10 auctions all end at £1 - 100% goes to charity
# seller has cheques made out for £10 to said charity
# seller forks out for item, postage, packing, ebay fees.
# Charity gets £10 within days of auction ending
# Seller is not destitute so can put on another 10 auctions asap
# Seller see's how easy it can be to help charity with quick results and not having that money making interest for a third party or having charity waiting for months to see the money.
# Ebay say on charities home page *We advise that it is more sensible to make cheque out to charity*
FINITO.
Answers appreciated withouht going to Jarra to get to Shields as my mam always says
PS why pay salaries for MF when alot of charities work voluntry - why isn't MF voluntry?
Has the media been informed of this move by Ebay? Will the media be informed? To my own personal way of seeing this, Ebay will take control of the money via this "Mission Fish", very much like they did with Paypal and there will be less charity auctions found on this site. Ebay win again and charities lose a bit more. It is a control thing dictated to by "share holders" and the time was deliberately chosen as most people will be picking children up or on their way home from work. Ebay is being eroded by greed! "Monopoly" is a filthy word in this case.
Oh and do not forget, Ebay will get all the credit, they will make themselves look like knights in shining armour.......... a thief by any other name will still be a thief.
Seller (who sells loads of low value stuff, as a business, has a shop etc) starts a 10 day auction at 1p start price under the charity ribbon logo. ALL his other auctions are non charity auctions. Item unlikely to sell for a high price, maybe go for £1, Lots of links on the charity auction to see his other fantastic items (of course these won't be under the charity banner)
He gets 10 days of extra exposure by using the charity ribbon which also gives him the look to buyers that ebay have "approved" his auctions.
These sort of auctions aren't really auctions for charity. They are a way of using the system for maximum exposure of their other items, and devalueing the true charity sellers.
In fact, if this becomes more commonplace than it is at the moment, then buyers may get fed up wading through all these sort of auctions to get to the true auctions and not bother looking at the charity auctions at all.
(I know what I'm trying to say, I hope you can understand what I mean!)
What's the betting that none of the really important questions get answered? ie....ebay will only answer those it deems to be in their favour. I have seen these so called workshops before....only ebay ever wins. They are just paying lip service putting this workshop on. We, the ones who provide them with all their profits, can't win. Our charities will be the losers.
What they have done in the past is C+P the questions from here and trot out the answers underneath at the beginning. They then do an interactive question and answer type scenario (some questions do seem to get overlooked though - probably by accident)
If you are VERY lucky Doug will appear and suggest that you gift wrap all your charity auctions as this makes you a better seller.He may give advice about how to gift wrap. Henry may pop in to give advice about cat baskets!( none of these are in any way distraction techniques from any awkward questions)
Just as it is getting good and some really tricky questions appear, either the boards will go down, or time is up.
This is a classic example of a weorkshop. It has gone down as the funniest workshop in all time. Many serious questions were being asked and not answered, then out of the blue, Doug posts his comment on post 87 - it sort of detioriates a bit from then on!!!!
Does the Missionfish system recognise second chance offers?
If someone had an auction finish and got a NPB as the highest bidder, and offered a second chance offer, and that person accepted - would they still get billed twice by Missionfish and have to claim back the first one?
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This is a local board for local people. There is nothing for you here.
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