How do you know what the truth is? Or even half of it? You paid $65. You are fretting over $65 getting to the 100’s of thousands of people that need help. I already put $250 to work , sending a 4 man team from my wife’s church equipped with flashlights, cells, chargers, fuel money and they had a lot of supplies on their own… they spent a long weekend, 4 days, pulling up wet molded carpet, knocking sheetrock off walls that were wet and muddy, to get at wet muddy molding insulation and drag it out to the street for pick-up along with ruined appliances, furniture, clothes, and all the mess they found. They dealt with really great people, in a world of hurt. They came back feeling pride, and broken, saddened deeply by the sheer extent of damages they saw. Yet prideful in how people were coming together in a time of need.
I set up the Relief Fund to accept donations to help people, same for the gmail account associated with it. When the incoming purchases stopped, I didn’t go into the email account, simple as that. Nothing going in, nothing to forward, which is what I was using the mail account for, to gather the addresses and names and forward them to Neal for shipping the lights out. So yeah, your dispute went unanswered because I didn’t know about it. I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, including how to run something like this relief campaign.
Recipient was not selling goods. A PayPal dispute over non-received merchandise, when it was a donation to begin with?
I wish Lumintop would have sent me a box of lights to send to people in the affected area, along with monies on BLF’s behalf. That would have been so much easier than how it all played out. I won’t be doing anything like this again, that much is for certain! I saw a bunch of folks looking to pounce on a good discount on new lights. To a large percentage, it was about getting a good light at a good deal, not about helping people. It felt wrong. The lights were an incentive to help, gobbling up two or 3 or 4 of these lights wasn’t supposed to be the plan, that took incentives away from someone else, sorry, the good new lights are gone, no need to put money into the relief campaign anymore. Nothing to see, move along…
Let me tell you “the half of it”… Neal and SB were hoping a larger percentage of the 22,000 BLF members would participate, and even bring others into the action. They were hoping it could escalate into possibly millions of dollars to help a vast number of people that found themselves victims of this storm. I was, truthfully, intimidated at what could happen here. We, all 22,000+ of us, managed to raise $1,250. What could we have done if every member here would have simply donated the price of a cup of coffee? We use this site, free of charge, every day. Right? And yet, when I give the church in Portland $1000 and say it’s on behalf of the members of Budget Light Forum, what it boils down to is that we gave a whopping $0.06 each to aid the thousands that lost their homes, cars, clothes, virtually everything.
I AM still proud though, to be able to help at all, and to be part of the good intentions of an ever growing family of flashlight enthusiasts. A lot of good people stepped forward, and I for one appreciate it. I’m sure the good people down in South Texas will also appreciate the effort. Indeed I already know that they are humbled by the unbelievable number of people that have stepped forward to help.
Thank you BLF, not sure what I’d have done without you this past 5 years…