Donation Confirmation + Buy It Now! Procedure

[darkseraphim21]

[Thanks to help_japan for the detailed process.]

This post contains the procedures in closing the auction, confirming winning bids, the donation process, confirming donations, the Buy It Now! process and thoughts on sharing the work created from help_mindanao.

Please read the entire post before asking questions. If you have any questions regarding any of the topics in this post, please comment below.

If you have questions regarding the charities selected, please ask them at this post.

I. Overview of the Closing, Notification, Donation, Confirmation and Creation Process

II. Detailed Process of the Closing, Notification, Donation, Confirmation and Creation Process

1. When the clock strikes 12:00AM EST on 20 January what will happen?
2. How do I know whether I’ve won?
3. How are you going to let winners know that they've won?
4. I’ve won! How do I donate?
5. By which date should I make my donation?
6. I donated before bidding closed! Does it count?
7. I’ve won multiple things! Do I have to donate for each item separately?
8. I’ve donated! How do I confirm that I’ve donated?
9. I’m concerned about privacy. Can I redact anything on my electronic receipt?

III. The Buy It Now option

I: Overview of the Closing, Notification, Donation, Confirmation and Creation Process

What’s the quick and dirty version of the closing/notification/donation/confirmation/creation process?

• The auction will close to new offers at 12:00AM EST on 17 January. Auction participants may continue to post bids to all auctions.
• All bidding officially ends at 12:00 EST on 20 January.
• Once you've been notified that you've won, you can donate to any of the charities listed in this post or to your offerer’s charity of choice. If you wish to donate to a charity that is not listed, you can do so with the Offerer’s consent. Regardless of where you donate, you will still need to send your offerer your donation confirmation.
• Once you've made your donation, either confirm it directly with the Offerer, or with the Comm Mods at this post. Please make sure to include a screenshot of your confirmation.
• Once the confirmation has been received, Offerers can then begin to work on your winnings.
• Offerers who are confirming donations should also post here. In the case of Mod-confirmed donations, the Offerers will be informed so that they can create/send/work on your winning item.
• If the confirmation is in a format other than an image file (i.e. JPEG, GIF, PNG), such as a PDF, winners can e-mail this to their Offerer. Once the Offerer receives the e-mail, they should publicly acknowledge receipt. They can do this by either confirming on the offerer’s thread or by posting a comment to the Donation Confirmation post.

II: Detailed Process of the Closing, Notification, Donation, Confirmation and Creation Process

When the clock strikes 12:00AM EST on 20 January what will happen?
All comments and replies in this comm will be screened. This means that any bids placed after 12:00AM will not be visible, and will never be unscreened as they will not count.

After about 6 hours (to accomodate for the different timezones of the mods), the moderators will switch the settings so that only comments on the Offering posts are screened.

This gives us a chance to shut down bidding rapidly. But because of the quirks of LJ, comments will be sent out even though they are screened. Therefore, if you are an Offerer, and get notification of a “bid” after the auction has closed, please disregard it.

How do I know whether I’ve won?
Just after 1200AM EST on 20 January, you can go back to the items you've bid on to determine whether you've won based on these factors:

• A. If the offer specifies the item going to the highest bidder, and you’ve specified the highest amount, you’ve won.
• B. If an offer specifies the item going to the top number of bids, and yours is one of them then you’ve won.
• C. For offers with multiple items, but with more bids than the number of items, winners are determined by the earliest placed bids

Note: We can tell whether bids have been edited. We will look to the time at which the post was edited to determine the time of the bid.

How are you going to let winners know that they've won?
There are two methods that we are going to use.

• A. The Offerer can inform the winning bidder.
• B. The community mods will inform the winning bidder.

Once the auction is closed, it is the offerer’s responsibility to inform the winning bidder. After 24 hours, the community mods will start informing winners who have not yet been informed.

If the Offerer wants to notify the Winning Bidder, the Offerer must reply to the comment by the Winning Bidder that contains the winning bid with this template.

You won my Offering of:
You can donate to any of http://help-mindanao.livejournal.com/419.html”>these charities.
If you would like to donate to a different charity, please let me know.
You can contact me at:
Just to remind you, this offer was posted at:
http://help-mindanao.livejournal.Com/____

For the most part, the responsibility of informing the winning bidder is up to the Offerer, but after 24 hours (12:00AM EST 21 January), the Mods will step in if there are still unconfirmed bids.

Note: This also applies to “Buy It Now” winners.

I’ve won! How do I donate?
You can donate via any of the links in this post or you can donate to your offerer’s preferred charity.

Please use Google or the search engine of your choice, or visit Charity Navigator if you're in the US, to research any charity/agency/organization you are considering donating to, so you can be fully informed about their practices and policies.

By which date should I make my donation?
The sooner you donate, the better. The Offerer should not start working on/shipping out your prize until your donation is confirmed. The absolute deadline is 12:00AM EST 20 January.

Note: Winners who have chosen to “Buy It Now” should make an immediate donation, and confirmation to their Offerer.

I donated before bidding closed! Does it count?
If you didn't use that donation receipt as confirmation for something else, it will count.

I won multiple things! Do I have to donate for each item separately?
No, you are free to donate in one lump sum, depending on the situation. If the Offerer has specific instructions about what charity they’d like you to donate to, but it is not agreeable to the other offerers you’ve won, then please donate separately for each item.

Regardless of how you donate, you are required to send a receipt to the Offerer(s) for proof of donation.

I’ve donated! How do I confirm that I’ve donated?
When you donate, you must get a receipt.

• If you donate electronically, your receipt should be emailed to you.
• You can screencap the on-screen confirmation or the one that is emailed to you.
• If you donate in person, get a written receipt.
• If you have a written receipt please write your LJ username and/or email address on it, then scan or photograph it.
• If you donated via text messaging, confirmation should be in your online phone management system, please screencap the confirmation.
• You can confirm your donation by forwarding the screencap, scan, or photo.

If you don't wish for your offerer to have access to any of the un-blanked information on your confirmation (e.g. Initial, part of RL name, etc.), you may PM your confirmation to any of the community moderators.

If you wish to pay for multiple bids with one donation, please confirm to the community moderators AND the offerers.

If you're donating to a charity approved by your offerer but is not on the community moderator’s list, please indicate the name of the charity on your donation confirmation form.

If you're confirming a single payment that covers a single winning bid, and are comfortable with your offerer seeing all non-blanked information on the confirmation, please confirm to the Offerer.

We are expecting a big influx of confirmations in the first few days after the Auction closes, so please do not worry if the help_mindanao mods do not reply to your confirmation immediately. If we haven't replied after three days, please send it again, and put RESEND in the subject line.

If have already confirmed to the Offerer, they can then begin working on your purchase. We would appreciate it if the Offerer would let the Comm Mods know that the donation has been confirmed.

I’m concerned about privacy. Can I redact anything on my electronic receipt?
Yes, you may. We need to be able to see the name of the charity you donated to, their address, the date/time of donation, the amount donated, a confirmation number and either (a) the first letter of your first and last name, or (b) your entire first name.

III: The Buy It Now! Process

Some people who are offering items in the auctions will be using the Buy It Now! function. Similar to the Buy It Now option used on eBay, bidders can make a donation in the amount of the Buy It Now price and purchase the item or service being offered immediately.

If you are an offerer who has had their offer purchased through the Buy It Now function, please PM any of the mods the following details:

• The exact link to your auction thread.
• The LJ username of the person who BIN’ed your auction.
• Proof of donation as specified above: the electronic receipt [screenshot or forwarded to you], the written receipt [scan or photograph with LJ username and or/email address], or the SMS confirmation [screenshot with LJ username and or/email address.]

The moderators will then close that offer thread and the offerer can start working on the item/s purchased.

That ends the Donation Confirmation + Buy It Now FAQ! Thank you all so much for all of your help, offers, bids, and support!

If you have any questions regarding the Donation Confirmation or the Buy It Now process, please do not hesitate to comment below.