Austinist: eBay Drops the Axe on Art Auction Benefiting Tamara Hoover

Ramon Copeland

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 15:15:52 -0600

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anonperiod

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:05:41 -0600

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

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:49:48 -0600

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

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:47:00 -0600

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.