5 ms·

By using prime shipping for non personal/ resale use, he's violating Amazon terms. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=13819201 http://w

• kelukelugames 10y ago
  Interesting point. I imagine it's a bad PR move for a company to enforce the terms in this particular case.
  • ikeboy 10y ago
    Whoever looks at his account might not have seen this article, anyway. I imagine spending $7000 on food gets your account flagged.
  • tamana 10y ago
    It's delicate PR, but preventing people from scamming shipping is defensible.
• cle 10y ago
  It _is_ different. It's tempting to use theft to describe all kinds of activity, just ask the RIAA. This is not theft.
  • ikeboy 10y ago
    I asked what the difference is. If a store offers a discount with specific terms, claiming the discount outside of those terms is theft. Paying less than obligated to is theft. Just like using fake coupons is theft, etc.
    • gambiting 10y ago
      No, the word you are looking for is fraud.
• bpeebles 10y ago
  Maybe I'm not seeing it but I don't see a generic non-personal term, closest is this: > Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits. Which seems to not apply here. I've never heard of a non-profit disallowing its members from using prime to benefit the charity, even if they're otherwise careful.
  • ikeboy 10y ago
    He's accepting donations, and using those to buy food. That means he's reselling the food he buys in exchange for those donations. I don't think there's an exception if you're not making a profit from the reselling. "Using prime to benefit the charity" is different if nobody's giving them money to do so, because they aren't selling anything then. But buying something on your account when someone pays you is reselling.
    • icebraining 10y ago
      He's accepting donations, and using those to buy food. That means he's reselling the food he buys in exchange for those donations. That's a really weird definition of "selling". I find it hard to believe that giving away stuff bought with donations is legally considered "selling" in most jurisdictions, including Canada.
      • ikeboy 10y ago
        Presumably, if he kept the items for himself, the person who donated would have a case against him. So he has a legal obligation to give the items to someone else, which was created when he received money from the donator. This seems clearly structured as a sale from Amazon to him, and a sale from him to the donator, with instructions to give it to charity. If it was his own money the case would be a bit murkier, perhaps.
        • icebraining 10y ago
          Clearly there's an obligation to use the funds for a specific purpose, but that doesn't mean the donor is buying that food, anymore than a donor to Doctors Without Borders is employing MDs. Unless the donors are choosing the specific items to be purchased and the specific recipients, I don't see how it can be considered that they have bought anything.
• onion2k 10y ago
  A man is buying food and Amazon is shipping it to him. What happens outside of that transaction really has nothing to do with Amazon so long as he isn't profiting from it.
  • ikeboy 10y ago
    He's buying it under false pretenses. The terms do not make an exception for resale if it's sold at cost.
    • bpeebles 10y ago
      It's not sold at all. Accepting donations, buying something, and then giving it to a third party is not selling in any way.
• thaumasiotes 10y ago
  There is no prohibition on non-personal use, and there never will be, since that would mean Prime account holders wouldn't be allowed to use Prime shipping to send gifts to other people, for example for Christmas. There are two relevant prohibitions in the US amazon terms: > Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits. He's not reselling or renting the food, so this isn't an issue. > You may not transfer or assign your Prime membership or any Prime benefits, including promotion codes for Prime memberships or benefits, except as allowed in these terms. I don't know what his tax structure is, but this is potentially relevant. The simplest possibility is that he receives money in his personal capacity as a sole proprietorship, spends it on food, and deducts the whole amount as a charitable donation. (I have no knowledge whatever of the Canadian tax system, and really only a little of the US tax system.) Assuming that works, he's fine. If that doesn't work, he'll either need to incorporate the charity he's running or pay taxes on the donations he receives. Letting other people directly pay for his orders, such that the money doesn't flow through him, would violate the non-assignability of Prime benefits. If he incorporates as a charity, the charity will need its own Amazon account; it can't use his. Amazon does offer business accounts with two-day Prime shipping, but their pricing appears to be purposefully unadvertised.
  • ikeboy 10y ago
    Why isn't buying using other people's money for other people considered resale?
    • thaumasiotes 10y ago
      Because you never get any money in exchange for the goods. Buying using other people's money would make him a purchasing agent, and would violate the prohibition on assigning Prime benefits. But he's not doing that either, he's buying with his own money.
      • ikeboy 10y ago
        He's buying using donations. If he's laying out money and paying himself back with the donations, what does that make him?