onlyican Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 Basically I have a new website in development where people donate X amount of money to Y charity. As a result an item is sent to them. To save money on the end user and allow less work for myself and more users receiving Z Package, I would like the end user to send the Z Package onto the next person direct, thus means Giving user A the address for User B and User B the address for user C ect. Would you be happy with this? The alternative would be User A sends back to the website, who then sends to user B This adds an additional cost for an extra postage charge and also adds posting time, thus less people receiving Z package and causes more work for the website as they have to buy loads of envelopes and would have to set this parcel for posting every week. Any other suggestions are welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salathe Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 No. The idea itself also sounds impractical. What if you have people sending you (or, the charity) money more quickly than "package Z" can be posted, received and sent on again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 Not to mention that you're going to alienate people who don't want their address given out to strangers. Just a bad idea all around, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyican Posted July 20, 2010 Author Share Posted July 20, 2010 salathe - The idea is the donation will be instant, the package will not be money and is just a new fun way of raising the funds I feel that people would not want another stranger having there address, i personally wouldn't like it, just means the fund raising idea turns to a business idea as I would have to collect funds to hande the postage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salathe Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 Even if folks did pass the package on to each other, you'd still have to "handle" the postage... or would you expect them to donate and pay for posting to some other person not of their choosing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyican Posted July 20, 2010 Author Share Posted July 20, 2010 The idea has been run through several trusted people and people would not mind paying a donation + postage. If they post back to me each time, I would have to charge them postage anyway as it would cost me a fortune to post something every week. After doing hours of research, this is not an issue. I have even spoke to people where a forum group sent a bunny to each other and took creative pictures on Flickr, which was successful and this was run by each using getting the next persons address only. As the main factor in the people likely to be using this site are middle aged working class, thus they would put the address of place of work. After the research I am most likely going to give users an option, if they would not like to give there address to the user who is already holding the item, then they would have to pay P&P to me and then it will come back to me and then I send it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnoTheDev Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 This is a bad idea passing one set of users data to another. The system is just asking for abuse! If one set of users details are passed to another via email, then your security better be good. I wouldn't touch this with a 6 foot bargepole. The legal ramifications are huge. Passing data on is essentially breaking the data protection act. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zq29 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 People give their address to strangers all day every day on eBay... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 And that's if they even want to forward the package(s) at all. Say 300 people donated - are you really thinking that sending all 300 packages to User A and relying on them to send the 299 remaining to User B is a good idea? To be honest, it sounds like whomever is starting/running this charity is in over their head. Relying on the people that donated to do the grunt manual labor as well is lazy, and even a bit insulting. It seems like very little planning has gone into this. Besides, good charities are run like businesses from the beginning - they know their own operating costs, and use a percentage of the donations received to pay for them, along with whatever grants and any other kind of government money they may be eligible for. These operating costs include things like the labor and cost of shipping these packages. Fake EDIT: A forum is much different than having unknown users attempt the same thing. A forum is a community itself, where members, even if they don't 'know' each other, can still somewhat trust each other. At the very least, they trust each other more than they trust an absolute stranger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 People give their address to strangers all day every day on eBay... The situations aren't the same. eBay is a one-on-one transaction. eBay also has the explicit consent of both parties. The OP's situation is essentially drafting a work force for his plan, where the power is disproportionally distributed. User A not only receives all of the packages to send to the other people who donated, but their addresses as well. Is User A trustworthy? If not, the damage has the potential of being much worse than with eBay (or Craigslist, or any other similar service) because it can affect more than one victim. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyican Posted July 20, 2010 Author Share Posted July 20, 2010 Just to clarify a mis-understanding The user will not be receiving 300 items and sending on 299, the user receives 1 item and sends that one item on to the next person. It is hard to explain more about this website without giving the whole idea of the website away, which is a risk in itself before the website is launched Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 That sounds a lot more reasonable. You'll need to make it as clear as day that those that donate explicitly agree to have their contact info given out, and that they will be receiving a package from another donator. Also, you should ensure that the package isn't anything someone would want to steal. Even something like a coupon to McDonalds would most likely never get forwarded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyican Posted July 20, 2010 Author Share Posted July 20, 2010 aye I understand that, the item would be a small £2 max product, as the risk of getting lost in the post, forgot to be posted, damaged ect. I will be sure to post back to this thread when the idea is more alive and ready for testing / reviews. I think I am going to go with the option 1) I am happy for the previous person to have my address 2) I do not want them to have my address, I understand I need to pay £5 towards P&P and Admin (Above is only an example, better grammar and explanation would be used and a price would be calculated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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