Donated Shoes Worth US$1m End Up On eBay | Ramblings of an e-trader

Wednesday, 17 December 2008

Donated Shoes Worth US$1m End Up On eBay

Although I love to do charity and will try to donate something when I come across any organization seeking to raise money, when I am shopping at malls, I only give a token sum because I am weary of how these non-profit organizations handle public donations. I guess we have heard too much how our donations have been embezzled, right?

Well, this morning, I was surprised to read that US$1 million worth of shoes that a company donated for people in Africa who need shoes have been discovered on eBay. The seller of these shoes is a lady who may be a broker and may not know that these are donated shoes and intended for the needy in Africa.

This shoe company donated the shoes to Soles4Souls who then handed these shoes to Gleaning For The World who was supposed to send these shoes to Africa for distribution. According to investigations, Gleaning For The World either sold or handed these shoes to another charitable body, passing the shoes to a couple of other organizations and then somehow landed on eBay.

Well, well well, see, not only do people have no qualms misusing publicly donated cash but they even want shoes. Wait a minute. Shoes are money too and with US$1 million worth of shoes, selling on eBay, one could at least bag US$500,000 -to US$75,000, right?

Soles4Souls have so far recovered most of these donated shoes and have already filed a federal lawsuit against the distributor, Gleaning For The World. It would be interesting to see how this network of non-profit organization unravels.

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