Its nice to see war torn and poorer countries are donating generoulsy.
Its just a shame that it takes such a massive disaster to unite the world.

Maybe now all the people here moaning cos ebay list a price a bit earlier than advertised will stop moaning and think about all the people who have lost thier lives, thier homes, thier familly.

There is more to life than winning some stupid prize.
Maybe we should all be spending the time we are wasting on here looking for prizes with our familly, whilst they are alive and well.
We never know what will happen in the next second, so make ever second worthwhile.
I bet many people caught in that wave wished they had spent more time with the ones they lost.

Although it has been hard to donate through the DEC site because it is so busy I have just got through so anyone who has been trying then try now cos you can get onto the donate section NOW!

You can also donate through the British Red Cross and other charities' websites:

http://www.bluepeter.redcross.org.uk/tsappeal/appeal.asp

im organising a gig and im trying to get all local places to sponsor me and trying to get a venue. im donating all the money made to tsnumai relief. So if anyone wants to give me any pointers on organising one would be great help 😄 Its my attempt to get all the local punks, metalheads etc to help 😄

Hi Dogfishdoom

Contact your local paper when you know when and where, so you get some free publicity or even to just to ask for help locally.

Contact your local council too as they may be able to help with various things, especially if it also promotes the local area. Ditto with the local Tourist Information Centre, although that may be part of the council anyway. Some are, some aren't.

Local bulletin boards online are another way of getting local help and awareness.

I am amazed at how generous people are by me in my local sainsbury they have collected over £4000 in just 2 days.
My heart goes out to all those over there and will hopefully be trying to raise some money for them at my childrens school as soon as they go back.

As I understand it - eBay have a pretty clear & strict charities policy. eBay_UK dont appear to have suc a specific one - but as a subsiduary of eBay_com they surely come under same policy - which is that the listings have to be done through missionfish.
Isnt nice to feel alienated that you cant post a few items to raise some funds - however there is nothing stopping you listing the items & donating the funds anyway... You just cant say that that is what you are doing with the proceeds from the sale within the auction!

As harsh as it seems - policy is actually designed to protect people wishing to make donations by making it harder for scam-artists to set up an auction saying that something is for charity & then not giving the money.
You have to say up front what percentage of the listings final amount is then donated to charity & that amount then goes to missionfish, with any remainder (non 100%$ donations!) going to yourself...
It also stops inappropriate items being listed, as a rep. from the charity has to approve the item - idea being to stop a collection of zippo lighters being auctioned to raise funds for cancer-research etc (if the charity objects to the relevant listing of course).

Please dont post through missionfish (unless they have changed there policy since the other day i have not checked)
They are charging something like $3 so they can have lights on in office plus a further 2.9% out of every donation/auction.

So not really charity they are making a fortune

I did a auction for Tsunami & stated clearly that payment was to be made by cheque only to british red cross

Has anyone seen the news today??? Some sick ***** is sending emails to the families and friends of people missing in the disaster, telling them their missing friends are dead - and it's all a hoax. Why? Who would do such a terrible thing?

I never said it was right or wrong - thats simply the system that is in place for listing charity auctions & as with every other eBay policy it should be adhered to until such time as it changes, or until eBay_UK has its own specific policy.
As for fee taken by missionfish - maybe $3 seems steep, but certainly the 2.9% is not nearly as much as some of these charities take - I found one the other day who "passed on" 56.9p of every £1 donated....rest being for "admin"
$3.00 is approx. £1.56 at current exchange rates...
Therefore - lets say you sell an item through missionfish, giving 100% to charity..
Item fetches £10.00 , 2.9% (29pence) to MF, £1.56 to MF - that leaves a charity donation of £8.15, so thats 81.5p of every £££ .... a much higher amount than many charities already take themselves - some charities will then take a percentage of that donation too, if its the one I found the other day ... 56.9p of every £1 - then approx. only £4.64 of every £10.00 raised selling through eBay goes to charity...
Thats not counting the listing fee & FVF which have to be paid to eBay... Time they are factored in - less than £4.00 of the original £10.00 could actually go to where it is needed most (more extreme example - most charities are between 70p and 95p in every pound, with varying admin expenses)...
You would actually be far far far better selling your item on eBay, forgetting to mention a charitable donation at all and simply donating the proceeds to a nominated charity of your choice.

i herd japan gave £500,000,000 or dollars in aid cant remember but not true then no?

It's terrible really when you think about it that anyone could be profitting from such an awful disaster. I do a lot of voluntary work but only ever claim my actual costs although most of the time I don't even bother.

Sick idiots like the email one mentioned above make me so mad - as if those people haven't suffered enough. If there's any justice in this world that person should have that come back at him/her tenfold.

Someone suggested either here or elsewhere to not mention auctions being for the appeal but to put it in your ME page instead. That is ok I take it?

If anyone has a website, I would urge you to put donation links on it. I have it on all my websites so if you want to know what I have, I can either direct you to it or send you a copy. Please contact me if you want to know.

You can donate money via your Paypal account. Go to the Paypal homepage and there is a large button on the right: Donate to the Tsunami Relief Effort, UNICEF (part of DEC I believe). If you click on the button it will tell you more about it.

This is great for sellers wishing to donate proceeds of sales.

I only hope that Paypal are not deducting anything from the money donated as they do on sellers receiving money.

The people in my little town were throwing 50's and 20's into the charity bucket at our local shop. I even managed to do it myself. I just wish I could have some personal contact with those people the charities are helping. There are so many good and kind people! Didn't one little girl remember something in a geography lesson about tsunami's and save about 100 people. It feels good to help, even if the amount is small, even if Paypal takes a cut, even if it is difficult to get through.

Paypal are waiving their fees normally applied to those receiving money through them. But, there doesn't seem to be a way of paying in UK sterling so am not sure if they would still charge for currency conversion to US Dollars.

Just a few pence here and there and before long you've made a difference, even if you thought you couldn't afford to.

Linked in with the Tsunami appeal, Oxfam are always happy to receive your old mobile phones, toner cartridges, stamps, forgeign coins etc. See link:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/recycle/index.htm

You can take items to an Oxfam shop, or post them.

Would just like to say, that I held a charity car wash event at work (4 of us washed 30 cars) some were with water and a bucket and others with the jet wash we have at work (ever wondered how police cars were cleaned?) I managed to raise £275 washing cars from 10:00am until 5:00pm. There is a collection box in the canteen, so that still needs to be counted too! All this money will be given to Oxfam to help with the Tsunami disaster. out of interest has anyone else held an event to help raise the much needed funds?

May I make a suggestion here please? Local Rotary Clubs are collecting money and need donations to buy Aquaboxes. These are like plastic water tanks, supplied with filter and purification tablets so that any water can be turned into safe drinking water.

They don't send them out empty, they fill them with all sorts of essential items (many of which can be donated by the public), like a small survival kit. They also do larger ones which contain a large tent, sleeping bags etc. The whole operation is done, including the manufacture of the Aquaboxes, by charities. Nothing is taken in administration costs and the co-ordination of delivering these boxes is organised by Rotary International in conjunction with Oxfam.

For more information about Aquaboxes see their website:

http://www.aquabox.org.uk

and what the Rotary Clubs around the UK are doing:

http://www.rotary-ribi.org/