eBay Drops the Axe on Art Auction Benefiting Tamara Hoover

*Update: We guess we were slightly short-sighted and admit we see your point about eBay having to be concerned about charitable auctions, but does that mean I couln't say I'm selling my baseball card collection in order to put my newphew through preschool? Anywho...Harold has moved the piece in question to his site. He is selling it for $250. All proceeds will go to Tamara Hoover.*

Remember how we told you about that lovely man in Kansas City named Harold Smith? He’s the expressionist painter who has done some really cool work, much of it inspired by one of our most favorite things, jazz. And he put one of his paintings on eBay with the expressed intent of donating the funds to Tamara Hoover’s legal fund. Remember? OK.

Well, apparently someone didn’t like the idea all that much. Whether it was eBay or someone from the moral police trying to disrupt fund-raising for Tamara, nobody knows for sure, but somebody had a problem with it, because the auction has been removed from the site. They say that the auction was in violation of the site’s charitable donations policy.

eBay sent the following message to Mr. Smith:

We appreciate that you chose eBay to list the following auction-style listing(s):
160004162029 - Abstract Expressionist Jazz Art Tamara Hoover Painting.

However, your listing was in violation of eBay's Charity policy and has been removed from eBay. We have credited all associated fees to your account and notified eBay users associated with the transaction that it has been cancelled.

We would like to take this opportunity to let you know what part of your listing is not permitted.

Your listing(s) contains the following information:

In Description: “I am giving 100 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of this painting to help provide legal aid for Tamara Hoover”

eBay encourages community members to be active in supporting charitable endeavors. Because charitable fundraising is a highly regulated area subject to numerous state and federal laws, eBay has partnered with MissionFish to make charitable listing easy and has created very specific guidelines for when charitable solicitations will be allowed on eBay.

Non-MissionFish listings 1. Sellers may only list items on behalf of a charity if the charity has provided advance written consent for the solicitation. To prove that you have obtained that consent, you must include a scanned copy of the consent in the listing. 2. Sellers may only solicit on behalf of recognized 501c3 or 501c4 charitable organizations.
MissionFish listings
1. Sellers may only list items via MissionFish on eBay that meet the MissionFish listing guidelines, including the guidelines designed to obtain advance consent from the charities.

2. Sellers may only solicit on behalf of recognized 501c3 or 501c4 charitable organizations.

For more information on Charity visit the following Help page:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/fundraising.html

Seems a little mission-Fishy to us. Smith says he may end up just selling the painting directly from his site. We will keep you posted as the situation develops.

Have you seen this happen on eBay before, or does it seem a little fishy to you, as well?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By matthewodam in Other on July 7, 2006 12:01 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Ramon Copeland

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are leading the way at this years MTV Europe music awards with four nominations...

anonperiod

Some friends of mine had at least 10 (probably more) auctions on ebay that said it was for charity. I'm not certain if they set it up that way through ebay. They were a website group, though they weren't exactly a charitable organization per se, and I think at one point they actually had an auction that named an individual as recipient.

My point is that people probably do post auctions that are out of compliance with ebay policy all the time.

I agree that perhaps ebay shouldn't be blamed, but I don't think they would have caught it if someone or some organization hadn't brought it to their attention. Perhaps it was the media attention, though.

anon

Point is, its a violation of their policy which is in place to try and stop people from producing charity scams on auction sites. My guess is they don't even know who Tamara is or care for that matter.

Think about what it would be like if they didn't regulate this on their "private" sites. People would put stuff up everytime there was some sort of tragedy and collect money from unsuspecting donators who didn't know any better. He should have just put the painting up for sale and not advertised that he was doing it for charity. He probably expected to get more money by it being listed as a charity auction, but still, anyone who does any amount of business on auction sites can tell you that if you're not 501 don't post the word charity in your listing.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing it's not a conspiracy; even though I really like them.

Lisa

It's unfortunately probably necessary to protect Ebay from lawsuits. Otherwise, anyone could post that they are auctioning something for charity just to up their bids. It's sad that we live in a world where people would take advantage of others' good nature, but you can't blame Ebay for covering their own butts.