I just read an article on the Washington Post (here if you have an account). For those without WP accounts, the article essentially says that a family made an auction on eBay to gather donations for their son who needs a biopsy to scan and possibly operate on a tumor in his head. eBay closed their auction because it represented a number of violations and they sent a letter to the family explaining what they would have to do to bring the auction up to code. The family started a new auction ostensibly for a bumper-sticker, which conforms to eBay's rules, and of course you also get the peace of mind of having helped a boy with cancer (though probably not the tax write-off). In the article the family called eBay's actions "heartless" and "rotten".
I composed this to the family of the boy with cancer:
I just read the article in the Washington Post and was honestly offended by your complaints about eBay. They have done everything in their power to basically facilitate your begging and you have the nerve to call them 'rotten'? It is in very poor taste for you to treat ebay this way after they have gone out of their way to help you out. They are a HUGE business and many of their customers make their living by using eBay. By comprimising the business rules they operate by they would be putting at risk the livlihoods of not just one sick boy but HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people. I certainly sympathize with you as I have lost someone close to me to cancer and I understand your feelings but I think it would behoove you to examine the situation from a broader perspective and re-evaluate exactly who is being rotten.
eBay can be a continuing source of revenue for the family, they can endlessly produce bumper-stickers and put them up for auctions as fronts for donations for their son's medical needs as long as people keep giving them money, so one closed auction isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. And just imagine if everyone who needed money did this? You would have this weird pseudo-communism with a greater distribution of wealth among the stupid but the super-rich elite would probably remain the same.
Marco said, "i dont think ebay is a mechanism for getting charity...but uh, keep in mind their son has a tumor in his skull jon"
So what does anyone else think, I probably shouldn't actually send that letter huh? I guess I should just be satisfied that I was able to squeeze a blong entry out of it
Posted by Jon at January 6, 2005 11:30 AM