Budget Light Forum Harvey Relief Sales Thread

Sorry, didn’t mean that to be directed at you specifically, since this is an open forum with people from all over the world I speak in general terms.

And I will.

:+1: Awesome.
I don’t mind the wait, but the vagueness was quite annoying.

As for the money, i’m sure it will end up where it’s needed.

so…
Any word yet on this?

Tomorrow makes 2 weeks since the comment about Neal getting the info to lumintop. Here’s to hoping it’s less than 2 more weeks to go.

This doesn’t bode well for future efforts to help people from here.
It isn’t easy, I know, butt communication is essential.

I am considering rescinding my Paypal payments for the Lumintop lights, and applying them to some other method of relief for the afflicted ppl in the area.
My donated light was paid for and I have sent it already.

I’m not trying to blame anyone, or worrying about the lights, I have lots of lights
I just want to get some help out to where it can do some good
That’s why I participated, and it seems stalled and nothing is getting to the needy

And therein lies the rub… if I pull the money out of the bank account, the bank account I created just for this purpose, and people like you get upset about the delivery of the light and rescind their payment, what happens to me with my depleted bank account? This is exactly why the money is still there.

Kind of sucks trying to do something nice, and be the middle man, and other people do not follow through with their word… blame goes to you even though you have done nothing but trying to be helpful.

Yeah, and the longer this goes on the more likely it is I’m going to have to pay taxes on these “profits” I have in the bank. :person_facepalming:

Well, i have lost my patience.
Just ordered a HLAAA from Banggood.
You can send my money to a Harvey relief fund of your choice.

Let us know how it is, and what we can expect.

So, just so y’all know, Chinooker is escalating a PayPal dispute to get his money back because he hasn’t received his lights. And THIS is why there’s a cool thousand dollars still waiting to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey. People like this guy, that want their money back in a donation thread. The same guy that pushed so hard wanting HIS money to help someone. Sad, is it not?

If lights ever show up that is good. However the money should go to the needy even if we do not ever receive the flashlight(s).

not even half the truth.

just let me get my money back and put it to a better, more relative use,

I was an early responder for a donated light, and paid extra in order for the paid donor to receive it early.
Hardly an action of a troublemaker, I would hope.

I, at this point, just want to get the donated money to where it is needed.
I don’t expect any lights that were promised and just want my money to be applied to the purpose you said.

This is the message I sent to Paypal after 2 1/2 months of sitting idle on my funds…
“Recipient has not provided goods, nor used funds to help people affected by hurricane Harvey. I wish to receive a refund and then re-direct them to The Salvation Army.”

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…

you are violating the spirit of a donation and causing trouble.
let it go
stop defending your indefensible position

I closed the bank account today, 10 days before it was scheduled to end, and sent a Cashier’s Check to the Oakridge Baptist Church in Portland Texas. They have been doing a lot of work with the people in Aransas county that suffered the direct hit of Hurricane Harvey. The members of the church are still helping with the demolition and rebuild of damaged houses from the hurricane itself, as well as flood damage. I called first and the lady I spoke with was obviously an older lady of the church and she was VERY appreciate of direct help to them at the church. I can see how so many people bring goods and the church members have to stock everything, then remove it to dispurse. So the good people of the church have been working their tails off trying to keep up with it all.

I wrote a letter to go with the check ($1000.95), explaining to some degree our forum and how we use our lights, but of course all credit goes to Budget Light Forum and our Admin, SB.

Thank you all for your support in this, I wish you could hear the gratitude in the lady’s voice that she expressed. It was pretty overwhelming and put tears in my eyes, made it difficult to speak….

Thanks for doing this Dale, and for your hard work on this. Sorry for the grief that has been caused

Thank you, Dale.

Thank Y’all, it was my pleasure to help, to be able to make someone’s day. I really feel that these folks have been in over their heads due simply to their proximity, and being the kind of people they are they’ve been more than willing to help in any way possible. It’s a long road, I sure hope everyone remembers that and continues to help where help is needed.

When I spoke with the lady at the church about all the movie stars and their big contributions, reportedly tens of millions of dollars, the lady kind of laughed, that’s all well and good but we sure didn’t see any of that here, at ground zero. And therein lies the rub, where does all that go? Salvation Army, Red Cross, I’m sure it’s distributed somewhere but probably has to be signed up for and stuff like that, those poor folks with no home at all, Hurricane damaged property, how do they “sign up”?