New site - "Downloads for a good Purpose"

[JFederated]

Just saw this on their front page - turns out they were lying the whole time about Enayla's skins:

News:

Tuesday . 11. September 2007: A good and a bad News for you:

The good one: We have added a new Rubric which includes some great Recols from other Sims 2 Communities! If you are still interested to create some recols too please read the following Informations under Recolors ! THANKS!

The bad one: We deleted one of our Creation from our first Set! The Gift includes a File from Modthesims, its not allowed to offer free downloads at a paydownload!We still want to say sorry to the Creator we dont know that the File is from a extern Creator! EXCUSE ME ALOT

http://freenet-homepage.de/bluesea/

Wonder if they took any 'donations' for those before they removed them.   :evil:

[neriana]

We still want to say sorry to the Creator we dont know that the File is from a extern Creator!

Bullshit. What scum.

[redisenchanted]

:roll: What idiots! If you're going to sell things, you'd better know what you're selling. They've disabled their guestbook btw.

[Ry]

I have no way of knowing if they intended this to be for real, or if it's all a big scam.
But to be honest, it was a really dumb idea.
After all the years of scams coming up in the Sims community it was kind of irresponsible to start this up assuming it would be looked at well.
As it's been pointed out, why bother with a middle man if you want to donate to charities?
Just go straight to the site and do it, then you know your money went where it was intended to.
I really think sites like this are a waste. Who cares whether or not they get Sims stuff if they donate to an organization anyway? You should donate because it's something you believe in, not because you're going to get downloads for your game.
It's just another way of bieng greedy. Asking something in return for your donation to a site that couldn't care less about The Sims.
Bah.
Meh.
And all those good *WTF* words.

[karu]

in the US,  charitable organizations can legally keep 90% of funds collected

[scrappysim]

But they arent the charitable organization.  They are simply collecting for the charitable organization.  They need to disclose the amount they are donating ( percentage of total donations) and allow people to decide if that percentage is something they are willing to accept and then they need to show proof that that is the amount they have actually donated.

If they only want to give 10% of what they are collecting they can do that but they should have to tell you that is the amount of your money that is actually going to the charity.  Other companies and organizations will tell you that this percentage of your purchase or donation will be given to the charity so you know whether you still want to have that item or give that donation.  If it were something you were going to buy anyway then it can feel like a bonus to have a portion of the price go to a charity (even a small part.  I mean if a restaurant wants to give a portion of my dinner price to feed the needy I am all for it.) but if you are only buying it because of the charitable donation I would expect a larger percentage to be donated as would many people, I would think.

[redisenchanted]

They're either dumb or dishonest. I'm leaning towards dishonest, but I can't be sure. Why not just put a prominent link on their existing paysite(s) saying if you like our things, please donate to this charity?

I agree that this sort of approach is only useful when it's something you would purchase anyway.

[LadySandyOinkers]

I came across that paysite the other time prior to finding this forum...I mean phorum. I also thought it was a scam and still think that.

Anyway, I just goggled the name of it and see that a "Dennis" announced the creation of the site on TSR's forum:

http://forums.thesimsresource.com/showthread.php?p=3508314

Supposedly the site's owner has enlisted cc creators to help out with the creations of cc sets....Never mentions who these are though.

I might be completely cynical, but I doubt that most people who purchase any cc from that site do that thinking that they truly are donating to WWF or UNICEF. I mean, this site truly reeks of a scam (at least to me). I bet the "costumers" realize it's a scam but don't care as long as they get the cc they are paying for. Same as if they were buying crap from other paysites. That type of attitude pisses me off--not as bad as greed, but close to it

Hey, about Enayla....Could anyone care to enlighten me as to what happened with her and the use and misuse of her skins? (if there are threads about it, love to read them). I also love her skins. Have downloaded nearly all of the ones she posted on MTS2. But I am newish to the whole pay/free controversy, so though I'm intrigued, I am also ignorant of most of it.

[Gwendolyne]

A German site posted Enaylas skins, slighly changed in a paydownload.

Read it here

http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=652&highlight=enayla

[Duckie]

...I mean, this site truly reeks of a scam (at least to me). I bet the "costumers" realize it's a scam but don't care as long as they get the cc they are paying for...

Well, no one has to pay for the scam donation sets any longer. They're in the booty.

[LadySandyOinkers]

...I mean, this site truly reeks of a scam (at least to me). I bet the "costumers" realize it's a scam but don't care as long as they get the cc they are paying for...

Well, no one has to pay for the scam donation sets any longer. They're in the booty.

If people only new more about it... I had never purchased a single CC from paysites before finding this site (good thing huh?), but I didn't find out about the booty until a couple of days ago. And that after having gone through my "download from the exchange" and "download from MTS2" phases. I guess it takes some search and research on one's own to find stuff, as well as helpful advice from people on other sites.

[BV]

Wow. I was laughing at how blatant of a scam this is.

And LadySandy, you're right. We should get the booty farther out there.

[redisenchanted]

Julsfels,

You may not know that there have been lots of scams in the Sims community before this. I think you need to know that people will wonder about your honesty in this no matter what you say. It's also a very bad time to open a paysite, no matter what your reasons. The blunder with the Enayla skins made things worse.

I respect that you had the courage to come and explain yourself. Your free site seems very nice too.

[keirra]

What is not okay is to ask people to pay for sims 2 files regardless of where the money goes.  :roll:

[Hecubus]

I think the better way to do this is offer the downloads, and tell people "instead of paying, click this button which will send your donations directly to UNICEF, the charity we support".  That way, no one HAS to pay money for pixels (in violation of EA EULA) AND they having an opportunity to support the charity.

I said before that your idea is like the twisted version of Money Better Spent. If you really want to do it the right way, set the downloads free and just tell people to donate. You could even make a donation screen come up so they are confronted with the plea before they get tot he download page, but they would have the option to bypass it.

Your heart's in the right place...your execution puts you in the paysite category.