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Misrepresentation by non-profit running online fundraising auction

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lkmiss

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? I am in CO, but non-profit is located in CA.

There is a small non-profit organization run by one primary volunteer, who is also CEO and founder, in CA. She ran an online fundraising auction through a charitable e-commerce third party website. I was interested in a particular auction item for a service with a value of $10K and the auction was to end the next evening. The opening bid was $3K and no one had bid. I had questions on the item so used the e-mail feature on the auction site to pose my questions. I was contacted via e-mail by the CEO of the non-profit and told that she was trying to obtain answers to my questions. The next day, still seeing that the auction was ending, I contacted her again via e-mail and was told she was still awaiting answers to my questions. I expressed concern that the auction was ending that day. In her response, she indicated that they only had a couple of items that were bid on and as a result were extending the auction through the weekend, and so I shouldn’t be concerned. I followed the auction through the rest of the day and the auction deadline had still not changed. I sent an e-mail to her, expressing my concern that the auction deadline for that particular item I was following had not been extended and I was concerned. Well, when I checked back, there was a winning bid of $3K and the auction had closed as per the original auction deadline. She had not extended the auction as she indicated she would do. The CEO responded back via e-mail on Monday and said that someone had bid on it and it was closed. I inquired about the fact that, in writing, she had indicated to me that the auction was being extended through the weekend, and I relied on that, since she was running the auction. She said that she had no way of knowing that someone else was looking at the auction item and that they would bid on it and that there was nothing she could do. I sent a follow up e-mail stating that this was not right and that she should re-open the bidding since she told me one thing, but did another, which I indicated called into question their fund raising ethics. She said she could not do that and that I took my chances on not bidding while waiting for answers to my questions. Of course, I pointed out the fact that she explicitly wrote that the auction was being extended through the weekend regardless of my questions. We’ve since had some e-mail exchanges in which she has now accused me of “bullying her” and has apparently forwarded my e-mails to the attorney on their board. Of course, I disagree on the “bullying” aspect as my e-mails, as I have factually pointed out our e-mail exchanges in my responses to her just as I have done here. Please advise as to how I should handle this. I have asked her to provide the attorney’s contact info. I believe that I am on the ethical side of right, but am I on the legal side of right? Do I have any recourse? Unfortunately, the auction item was of a very specific nature with a specific company and it cannot be substituted with something else, which is what she originally offered to do. Basically, it would be like bidding on a BMW and being told that they were going to be offering a Chevy in their next auction so you could bid on that instead.
 


tranquility

Senior Member
Please advise as to how I should handle this.
Let it go. You're not going to win any litigation here. The term you're looking for is promissory estoppel, but, your claims don't seem enough to show a harm to you nor do I think the cost of litigation between states will be worthwhile. Also, it seems you've contacted the other party directly enough. I guess you can start a nasty publicity campaign against the person or charity, but that would set yourself up for getting sued as well.
 

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