posted on September 19, 2001 05:03:43 PM new
Emailed a newbie seller in the Auction for America program about his requirement that the buyer pay the s&h. I referred him to ebay's A4A sellers' page, which contains the terms and fees.
Here's what he just wrote back:
"I actually didnt see that part but thanks for pointing it out to me!! I just thought the fees that ebay charges me for the bid will go to that fund."
His item is already past $170 with 4+ days remaining....
posted on September 19, 2001 05:16:55 PM new
Well, I hope he read far enough to figure out that the bid amount would go to the fund, too! If he didn't, he's in for a big surprise at the end of the auction.
posted on September 19, 2001 05:48:10 PM new
I've noticed the same. I've seen sellers with dozens of expensive items in the A4A that have payment terms/shipping & handling in the TOS. I wonder what will happen when those auctions close. This will cost some sellers hundreds of dollars.
posted on September 19, 2001 05:54:44 PM new
Just got an answer from another seller about this same s&h question.
Here's this seller's complete answer:
[i]Thank you for your information.
"The seller is responsible for shipping & handling expenses related to their Auction for America items." It doesn't mean I have to pay S&H.
However, I'll pay shipping for this item no big deal.[/i]
Yes, you read that right: "The seller is responsible for shipping & handling expenses related to their Auction for America items" does NOT mean that the seller has to pay S&H....
Edited to add a 3rd seller's response. He was selling a heavy PC server:
"I'm sorry...that item wasn't supposed to be an auction for america item - it was an accident. I just canceled the auction...sorry about this."
posted on September 19, 2001 06:01:42 PM new
maybe one way to be "responsible" is to get the buyer to pay for it? Or convince the USPS to ship it free for charity?
posted on September 19, 2001 06:05:58 PM new
The other night I spent 35 - 45 minutes checking A4A auctions and the MAJORITY of them had shipping & handling fee. Just for grins I wrote several of them telling them ebays rules regarding A4A auctions. Four responded and basically siad the buyer will be paying for shipping & handling.
Either people don't understand A4A, They didn't read the rules or don't care about the rules and will charge or try to charge the buyers no matter what eBay says.
I must note none of the people I wrote to had excessive shipping & handling fees.
posted on September 19, 2001 06:46:01 PM new
Since auction payments MUST be paid thru Billpoint...how do the sellers plan to get their money for shipping if they don't understand THEY pay it, not the buyer?
I think some are in for a big surprise and LOTS of neg feedback??
posted on September 19, 2001 11:32:24 PM new
The shipping and handling charges mistke will come to a head when the winning bidders go to the Billpoint form to pay for the items.
One of 2 scenarios will happen. Either the Billpoint form will have a space for shipping and handling and it will go to charity, or the form will not allow for shipping and handling, and then the seller may ask for the buyer to send the extra funds to the seller.
What happens will be a mess. Buyers will complain to eBay about the "extra" charges. Sellers will refuse to ship unless the shipping is paid.
posted on September 20, 2001 03:39:37 AM new
The Billpoint form is all pre-filled-out by Billpoint...no S & H charges. An AFA seller can't make any changes before or after listing...and the end of auction email says:
[i]
Thanks for your participation in Auction for America! For your convenience and to ensure payment to the charity, paying for items in this fundraising event is different from a typical eBay transaction.
Here's what to do next:
Bidders: To ensure that your payment goes to the charity, you must use eBay Online Payments by Billpoint to pay for this item. Simply select the "Pay Now!" button after you click here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=xxxxxxxxxxx
Buyers should not pay the seller directly.
Since you will receive an item of value for your payment, you should assume that you will not receive any charitable deduction. If you want to contribute separately, please go to http://pages.ebay.com/charity/.
Sellers:
You should not need to contact the buyer. You will receive shipping instructions via email from eBay Online Payments by Billpoint once the buyer has paid. You may not ask the buyer to pay via any method other than eBay Online Payments. This helps eBay ensure that Auction for America proceeds go to the specified charity.
You are responsible for paying all related taxes and shipping costs for this item.
Payment will not be credited to your bank account but will transfer directly to the specified Auction for America charity. You can view payment and donation information in your Billpoint account.
[/i]
At least this is what the one I got for purchasing an AFA item said, about two days ago.
----
TRC
[ edited by theredcircle on Sep 20, 2001 03:41 AM ]
posted on September 20, 2001 04:18:01 AM new
"Sellers: You should not need to contact the buyer. You will receive shipping instructions via email from eBay Online Payments by Billpoint once the buyer has paid. You may not ask the buyer to pay via any method other than eBay Online Payments. ..."
Sounds like a dress rehearsal for a half.com type payment / no customer contact scenario for ebay.
posted on September 20, 2001 04:24:55 AM new
Not only do I see a LOT of sellers stating "buyer to pay S&H costs", but I also see sellers stating "payment by Paypal, cash, MO, etc" - not only Billpoint.
I did write to one person yesterday regarding this and this was their response:
yes, I know this. I have an automatic lister setup in my webprogram. I am asking everyone that purchases to pay the original shipping cost so AUCTION FOR AMERICA RECEIVES MORE MONEY
Maybe that is the reasoning behind some of these sellers stating S&H charges on their charity auctions?
posted on September 20, 2001 04:58:57 AM new
>Sellers:
You should not need to contact the buyer.<
Yet ebays own TOS states......
" The bidder and seller should contact each other within three business days to complete the sale"
....and....
"So you've won your item, or you've sold an item. Now what do you do?
Your first move is to contact the other person in the listing"
capotasto could be correct, it does sound like a dress rehearsal for future, non-contact selling.
>: "The seller is responsible for shipping & handling expenses related to their Auction for America items" does NOT mean that the seller has to pay S&H....<
Oh boy, looks like a seller creating a new 'gray area'!
I guess that you can look at it that way of you want but I doubt that ebay will agree.
However, they are just a venue......
They (ebay) really should have thought this through a little better.
It looks like it may get real interesting as the auctions begin to end and invoices are sent!
posted on September 20, 2001 05:04:11 AM new
According to the EOA, it looks like AFA is a cash donation by the seller.
Edited to Add- BUT IT IS A CASH DONATION DONATED THROUGH THE BUYERS CREDIT CARD ???? WHAT AN ABSOLUTE MESS. THERE ARE SOME SELLERS THAT HAVE LISTED EXPENSIVE ITEMS THAT ARE GOING TO HAVE ONE HECK OF A TIME DOING THEIR TAXES. ANY SINGLE DONATION OVER $250 MUST HAVE A RECEIPT AND A STATEMENT FROM THE CHARITY THAT YOU RECEIVED NOTHING OF VALUE FROM THE CHARITY IN RETURN !!!!
[ edited by REAMOND on Sep 20, 2001 05:29 AM ]
[ edited by REAMOND on Sep 20, 2001 05:38 AM ]
posted on September 20, 2001 05:15:22 AM newAccording to the EOA, it looks like AFA is a cash donation by the seller
That's exactly the way I see it. Ebay using it's sellers to make them look good. The sellers *ALWAYS* get the short end of the stick. ALWAYS.
Another thing I would like to know about, is how ebay plans on handling chargebacks or unhappy bidders? Does the seller have to refund the money to the buyer if they are unhappy? Are chargebacks going to be allowed?
I'm just curious. I personally want nothing to do with the AFA auctions.
posted on September 20, 2001 05:24:11 AM new
Here are a few examples of the shipping charges listed in AFA auctions....
"Buyer pays shipping, handling and insurance of $12.00. Same business day shipment upon processing."
" WINNING BIDDER TO PAY $4.50 SHIPPING AND HANDLING "
"All are mint in the box. Paypal, billpoint, money orders only. Shipping is 10.00"
"Buyer will pay $1.50 S & H (USA). Canada add .50. Payment to be made within 10 days. Minnesota residents agree to add 6.5% sales tax. I accept payments from anyone with a credit card at PayPal - always FREE!"
"Winning Bidder from United States - pays $5.50 shipping and handling"
"Winning bidder to add $4.00 shipping and handling."
...and on and on.....
I do have a question....
....why are there ANY reserve auctions in the AFA listings????
So if the item doesn't make the reserve NO money goes to charity?
ebay should have disabled reserves for this feature.
posted on September 20, 2001 05:53:13 AM new
It will be interesting when buyers who have read the rules regarding A4A start winning bids and then get e-mails from sellers requesting shipping and handling charges. eBay is going to have their hands full. There is going to be a lot of complaints. I just wonder how they will be handled. I know many bidders are taking A4A in the spirit it is intended by wanting to something to help but they are also looking forward to getting something for their money and that includes taking advantage of receiving FREE shipping & handling.
As I previously mentioned I contacted several people who had A4A auctions where they stated shipping and handling charges. I wrote to a bunch of them and told them the rules eBay set up for A4A auctions and notified them shipping was the responsibility of the seller and asked if this was an error or do they want shipping & handling from the buyer. Four of them replied to my e-mails, stating they were expecting the buyer to pay shipping.
posted on September 20, 2001 06:07:56 AM new
I launched 2 AFA auctions so I don't look like a bozo to my regular M-P customers -- and I state in each auction "FREE MEDIA MAIL SHIPPING!"
Here is the listing email I received from eBay -- makes it pretty clear that you CANNOT contact the buyer for more moola:
"Congratulations Mr Monkey-Porn and thanks for your participation in Auction for America! Your item has been successfully listed on eBay.
For your convenience and to ensure payment goes to the charity, processing items related to this fundraising event is different from a typical eBay transaction.
After the listing ends, you should not need to contact the buyer. You will receive shipping instructions via email from eBay Online Payments by Billpoint once the buyer has paid. You may not ask the buyer to pay you or to pay via any method other than eBay Online Payments. This helps eBay ensure that Auction for America proceeds go to the specified charity. Please do not mention any other payment methods in your item description or your listing will have to be cancelled.
You are responsible for paying all related taxes and shipping costs for this item.
Payment will not be credited to your bank account but will transfer directly to the specified Auction for America charity.
This notice does not serve as a receipt for your charitable contribution. You will receive a written acknowledgement of your donation for tax purposes via e-mail after payment processing has been completed.
As part of eBay's support for the relief effort, eBay is crediting to your account insertion fees and final value fees for all Auction for America listings. You are responsible for paying any optional feature fees such as bold, list in 2 categories or reserve. eBay will donate an amount equal to those fees to an Auction For America charity.
Please note that you will not be able to make changes to this listing."
I think the proverbial $%#@ will hit the fan when auctions start closing!!!
posted on September 20, 2001 06:13:44 AM new
This is real great. I can't decide what's worse about this program the INCOMPETENT way it was set up, or eBay's motives for setting it up that way.
Billpoint payment instructions-
<<<Since you will receive an item of value for your payment, you should assume that you will not receive any charitable deduction. If you want to contribute separately, please go to http://pages.ebay.com/charity/. >>>
UMMM NOPE. IRS rules CLEARLY state that when a buyer buys goods, and the proceeds of that sale go DIRECTLY to charity, the buyer can deduct anything above the Fair Market Value that he/she paid for the item. SOOO, for example, if you bid $100 on a new widget that would normally cost $50 in stores because you both needed the widget and wanted to help the cause, the $50 extra IS tax-deductible by IRS rules.
posted on September 20, 2001 09:56:14 AM new
As a B&M shop owner, maybe I am the only one who is noticing another FLAW in this program:
"You are responsible for payment of all RELATED TAXES and shipping costs for this item."
It would seem that technically, if you already collect sales tax (normally on items sold to winners from your own state), that not only will you be donating the item to the now-infamous AFA/eBay Advertising Campaign, and eating the S&H costs; but you ALSO get to pay the sales tax on the final auction amount to your state government for the priviledge!
Therefore; hypothetically; if an item you choose to "donate" was worth $50.00 and "sells" for $150.00 to someone in your home state, you will also OWE sales taxes on the sale amount....not the amount IRS allows you to deduct!!
Something tells me my CPA would tell me to "just write a check to the Red Cross and stay away from this mess!"
HEH MEG! Just ONE MORE "little" problem nobody bothered to address when you guys were dreaming up this publicity stunt!
I still have that NAGGING question coming to mind too:
"Just HOW MUCH $$$ is ACTUALLY needed as all sorts of funds roll in from every conceivable direction?"
posted on September 20, 2001 10:23:41 AM new
"Just HOW MUCH $$$ is ACTUALLY needed as all sorts of funds roll in from every conceivable direction?"
Well gee whiz, I dunno. I can't recall the last time three jumbo jets crashed, part of the Pentagon blew up, and two 110-story skyscrapers crumbled to the ground in the space of a couple of hours.
Are we actually putting a value on human life here? Because if you are, try to remember that there are over FIVE THOUSAND PEOPLE listed as CASUALTIES or MISSING (and presumed dead). Take your "value" and multiply it by that much. How much $$$ is ACTUALLY needed for their families?
Or are the only important lives to consider in the situation all the whining sellers?
Christ, for once it's not eBay making me sick...it's the people using it.
posted on September 20, 2001 10:46:46 AM new
It's AMAZING sitting here and watching the people against this program with very few exceptions outlining one apparently reasonable and valid concern after another, then having the people FOR it not truly address those concerns, watching them instead question the compassion, patriotism, motives, etc. of everyone who disagrees with them. Consistently. Asininely. Derogatorily.
Personally.
posted on September 20, 2001 11:08:04 AM new
theredcircle posted
"Well gee whiz, I dunno. I can't recall the last time three jumbo jets crashed, part of the Pentagon blew up, and two 110-story skyscrapers crumbled to the ground in the space of a couple of hours. "
It was FOUR jumbo jets. I know that's petty but one crashed in the state I live in. PA.
The money donated and collected has so many purposes packsratsattic. Funding the MANY fire departments assisting the NY Fire Department in the cleanup, keeping food and drinks for the volunteers, the disposal of the rubble not to mention the thousands and thousands of families who will be left without a source of income, who may not have had insurance, who have families of children and children on the way, children who are left with no parents at all, memorials that will be erected for the victims of all four flights, the Pentagon, the WTC's...there will never be enough funding for all of this.
posted on September 20, 2001 11:13:33 AM new
GreedBay said: It's AMAZING sitting here and watching the people against this program with very few exceptions outlining one apparently reasonable and valid concern after another, then having the people FOR it not truly address those concerns, watching them instead question the compassion, patriotism, motives, etc. of everyone who disagrees with them.
I have a hard time believing that someone with the userID GreedBay will be looking at both sides in a fair, impartial and unbiased manner. You wouldn't by any chance have an axe to grind, would ya?
Personally, I ain't fer it (except to the extent that funds will be going to the families of the victims) and I ain't agin it. Nothing is being shoved down my throat. I simply choose not to donate in this manner and that's pretty much the end of it for me.
Although, I do agree with a poster on a related thread who said people who are getting so worked up about this could actually expend that energy helping someone. If 1/10th of the energy y'all are expending here having fits and hissies were spent on helping others or even working to improve your auctions / customer service, what an amazing change would be wrought. Think about it.
posted on September 20, 2001 11:24:42 AM new
Dear Redcircle, we are not sheep. We will not be lined up and made to have hardship, however altruistic eBay wants us to be, in the name of eBay.
There are so many viable questions that have arisen because of this "rush to compassion" eBay has created.
We must listen to our heads as much as our hearts are hurting.
We will not be USED by eBay and Billpoint to further their great big ole $1 million donation while we as sellers pick up the other $99 million.
I think alot of us are small sellers and have willingly donated through our own means. It must have sounded great at that big old coreporate eBay round table when they hatched this relief effort. But---we as little sellers cannot use this as a tax write-off. I am sorry, don't mean to sound harsh and insensitive. But don't you get the feeling that is exactly how eBay is looking at this tragedy?
I have been horrified, grief stricken and worried about our country since last Tuesday. Does that mean I ask my friends or business associates to donate to the relief cause in my name? I don't think so.
posted on September 20, 2001 12:47:34 PM new
Why question the need?
Why NOT?
You may be comfortable with ebay BLINDLY raising $99,000,000 on the backs of its sellers and then BLINDLY turning it over to an organization with a less-than-stellar record of using its funds in the wisest manners; but many of us aren't!
When you add all the fund raising efforts together, it becomes an almost unfathomable amount of cash!
I just feel that eBay could have made a much more PRODUCTIVE contribution in a much more productive way than AFA.
How much different would these threads AND the auctions be if eBay had instead:
....Agreed to MATCH amounts from donated auctions?
....Encouraged people to LIST items for 2 or 3 or 4 weeks with part of all fees going to the relief effort?
....Do whatever they could to help stimulate the economy thru their "venue" instead of trying to make the biggest splash in the corporate giving pool? (If we have more money from closed auctions, we have more money to give!)
....Spread the money that is raised around the charitable groups instead of flooding one agency?
....AND: What if they had THOUGHT to ask the community they intended to use to accomplish this?
[ edited by thepackratsattic on Sep 20, 2001 12:54 PM ]
posted on September 20, 2001 01:04:29 PM new
Paperfan-
Click on my Posting ID. You will see that I registered with this ID contemporaneous with the start of the AFA program, and I use this ID because it's my statement about AFA. That's the ONLY reason. I have been a Powerseller <barf> on eBay for years, I have had my disagreements with them, as all of us have, I have had my agreements with them, I have at least one fairly good I don't know if I would call him friend, but um chatting Manager/buddy so to speak in eBay who was initmately involved in all aspects of this program at the higher levels. My "axe" to grind (as you call it) is simply and exclusively my honest and heartfelt outrage at what I perceive (and there's LOTS of evidence for it) as eBay's cynical manipulation of this senseless and terrible tragedy for its own benefit. I'm not saying that's why eBay started this program EXCLUSIVELY, I'm saying that there were a lot of things they could have done that wouldn't be grossly exploitative. At the very least, eBay's excuse that "well, this program has flaws, but we were in a hurry blahblah..." doesn't hold a drop of water to me, because it is a 100 day program, and the funds in actual fact aren't needed as emergency funds, as those are pouring into the affected areas by literally the billions as we speak. People like Pataki, Giuliani, etc. are confirming that, nobody needs emergency relief now as emergency relief is defined... If eBay was in such a hurry to roll out an admittedly faulty program, and a program by which (through Billpoint) is SERIOUSLY exclusionary, I keep asking myself why...Why not take a little more time and do it RIGHT so that these issues that have come up in droves (tax issues, Billpoint, TOS, ad nauseum) wouldn't BE issues. You know what I come up with??? I come up with the old saying for eBay- "make hay while the sun shines," only in this case, it's the darkness hanging over this country following this insane, murderous attack...
posted on September 20, 2001 01:39:27 PM new
GreedBay...I know that you had the ID before this particular situation arose. Still, that doesn't change the fact that by having it you are advertising that you have a particular "bent" against eBay, Powerseller status irregardless.
I don't disagree that there are valid points of issue with this program. The tax thing in particular. But, one thing you said intreagues me. You said, "having the people FOR it not truly address those concerns, watching them instead question the compassion, patriotism, motives, etc. of everyone who disagrees with them. Consistently. Asininely. Derogatorily.
Personally."
Isn't this exactly what you are doing of eBay? You are certainly questioning the compassion, patriotism, motives, etc. of eBay and I'd say it's pretty consistent, personal and derogatory.
posted on September 20, 2001 01:41:17 PM new
Greedbay, A lot of posts about A4A have degenerated from a means to share information, voice agreement or disagreement about eBay's A4A project to posts to carp, moan, bellyache, snivel, whimper, grouse, complain, whine, mewl, gripe, and snarl ad nauseam.
Like it or not, in all likelihood, eBay A4A auctions will continue for 100 days as eBay has planned. If you believe that what eBay is doing is illegal, immoral, or unethical than act on it within the proper arena. Continual carping here isn't a constructive means to change anything.
BTW save your breadth and keystrokes, and don't bother to tell me with all due respect I am wrong. I have been insulted by experts, and you sir, are no expert.
