DonationOffers Terms and Conditions

These Terms and Conditions supersede all previous Terms and Conditions, amendments, supplements, and other prior statements concerning the conditions of service to which these Terms and Conditions apply. DonationOffers reserves the right to unilaterally modify, amend, change or supplement these Terms and Conditions without notice. By participating in this service you agree to abide by these Terms and Conditions.
I designed this site to be similar to online auction sites, except there is no bidding. Listings are free and you simply contact the person offering the item to negotiate the transfer.

As we have all gotten enough unsolicited email (spam) already, I have designed the service so that your email will never be publically available for any user or web-crawling robot to use, nor sold or given to any third-party:
  • None of your personal information other than city, state/province, zip/postal code and country are displayed or are in any way available to others through this site.
  • Any request to contact you comes through the site, so your email address is never revealed unless you choose to reply to email from others.
  • Your personal information will never be sold or in any way disclosed to any third party unless we are complying with a request from some law enforcement organization.

    • Giving

    If you have an item that you expect would be of value to someone else, you may offer it here for free. You simply fill in a short form where you select a category, provide the title and description of the item, indicate how long you want the listing to run, and whether the item can be picked up and/or shipped. If you wish, you can include a picture.

    If you offer the item as shippable, you select who pays for shipping (I expect that in most cases it's reasonable to expect the receiver to pay for shipping, but I included the option for the giver to elect to pay for shipping in case someone desires it).

    Please note that many articles and substances that you use daily may be non-mailable, or may require special packaging, markings, or precautions in order to be mailable. It is your responsibility to follow any restrictions your shipper has regarding such items: USPS - UPS - FedEx. I have excluded the possibility of shipping any live pets.

    I suggest that you include in the description of the item whether the shipping cost is to be actual cost or some fixed cost. I sold many items on ebay and found that it is a pain to use actual shipping cost since you have to package it up and weigh it before you can get the exact shipping cost. I suggest that for small items you just pick a reasonable fixed price and for larger items you get an approximate weight (add a pound or two for shipping materials) and say something like "postage is calculated using http://postcalc.usps.gov for a 17 pound package from zip code 12345" (using your package's weight and your zip code, of course).

    When someone is interested in your item they will use a form on our site that sends a message to you via email. Simply respond to the email if you wish to pursue the transaction.

    Once the item is gone (or if you choose end the listing early), simply log in and cancel the listing.

    If you wish, you can restrict your offer to qualified charities that can give you a receipt that you can claim as a deduction on your income tax return (how donating for a tax deduction works). It is up to you to validate the non-profit status of the receiver and to negotiate the transfer of such a receipt. DonationOffers.com is not reponsible for guaranteeing the arrival or validity of receipts for charitable contributions. For more information I found an article How to Verify the Exempt Status of Public Charities that refers you to IRS Publication 78 - Cumulative List of Organizations as one reasonably good source. It also says you can call the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Customer Service at 1-877-829-5500 to find out if an organization is a public charity. If you ever feel that a person or organization has misrepresented themselves (or have any other issue where you feel that something inappropriate has transpired involving the use of this site) please let me know.

    Receiving

    Anyone can browse and search listings. When you find a listing that is of interest to you, simply click the "Respond to this listing" link and you can send a message to the giver. If they included a telephone number or other contact information in the listing you can of course use that, but in general the "Respond to this listing" link will be the method of contact. To control unsolicited email, you must register before you can respond to a listing.

    Interact directly with the giver to answer any questions you may have and arrange the transfer of the item. It's that easy!

    You can search just titles or entire listings. Geographic searches can be done by city, state/province, zip/postal code and/or country. You can also search by whether or not the giver seeks a receipt from a recognized charity for income tax purposes.

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