eBay’s Giving Works allows you to earmark a percentage of your auction earnings to be donated to any one of a number of charities which are participating in the eBay Giving Works program. In addition, there are incentives for donating a majorty of the earnings to the charity of your choice.

For example, if you donate 90-100% of the winning bid, eBay will donate your insertion and final value fees.

And they make it really easy to sell through Giving Works. You create an account at the Giving Works partner, Mission Fish. Then, when you create your auction listing with eBay, if you select the “give to charity” option, Mission Fish tracks that auction for you. You must use PayPal or a credit card as methods of payment.

I was very excited by the potential to do good things with this program, and created AuctionAid.org as a vehicle for attracting notice to the cause, and to the unique celebrity auctions I listed through eBay’s Giving Works. I earmarked everything, 100% of the proceeds, for Hurricane Katrina aid, and raised over $5,000. It was grand.

And then the fine print kicked in.

First, my buyers’ payments for its auctions started showing up in my…

[Continue reading The Screwing of the Good Samaritan - The Problems with eBay's Giving Works]