Brickpicker Raffle Fundraiser for a Great Cause!!

[Roy vd M.]

12 minutes ago, MathBuilder said:

Thanks for the well thought and explained analysis. Of course there is a ton of speculation on your post on how "hoarded" are the tickets. Only the Macs really know where BPers are placing their donations/bets. There is a great chance that many here did an analysis like yours before purchasing tickets and purchased accordingly. Furthermore, while there were several waves and early birds did not have the whole options, as you have seen the bulk of the tickets has been purchased at the very end anyways, with many early birds making second and third purchases.

Of course you're right as to the speculation part, but my post was mostly meant for fun and to hopefully get some more people to purchase a couple of last-minute tickets. 

[Armor]

Finally decided to get some tickets. I would like to know what bundle has the most tickets after its all over.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Armor

[Guest brickcrazyhouse]

11 minutes ago, Armor said:

Finally decided to get some tickets. I would like to know what bundle has the most tickets after its all over.

anyone can know their odds. Just buy one ticket of each category you're interested in at the last minute and you will see how many ticket were sold.

[heyitsme]

i was going to buy $100 worth, but rallyup kept wanting more and more personal information and so i didnt go through with it

[lego rules]

14 minutes ago, heyitsme said:

i was going to buy $100 worth, but rallyup kept wanting more and more personal information and so i didnt go through with it

Like what?

[Lordoflego]

19 minutes ago, heyitsme said:

i was going to buy $100 worth, but rallyup kept wanting more and more personal information and so i didnt go through with it

Come on man, school needs your help, it wasn't that much work even for my lazy butt

[Jeff Mack]

i was going to buy $100 worth, but rallyup kept wanting more and more personal information and so i didnt go through with it

That makes no sense. It is normal billing information. Also how else do you think they get the information to send a winner their prizes. We can't send the sets to nowhere and think you will just get it.

Also you can just donate via PayPal if the rest bothers you. Not sure what was so much.

[Phil B]

Ed, don't forget the Dark Side of the Force ... it's called Procastination Keep hammering these messages at folks and more importantly, put up a "Only X days left" banner everywhere. I'm sure that will entice some ....

$48k passed .... Just wanted to remind you all about my prediction from 3 weeks ago . To celebrate my clearvoyance, I added one more ticket to my tally

[Ed Mack]

anyone can know their odds. Just buy one ticket of each category you're interested in at the last minute and you will see how many ticket were sold.

Hence the $110.

[Phil B]

One thing struck me in the rallyup purchase, it comes with this templated, non-completed message:

"For income tax purposes, it is important for us to state that you did not receive any goods or services in connection with these contributions. Your contribution is tax-deductible.{Name of Tax Exempt Org} is a non-profit corporation and is recognized as a tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Service code 501©(3)."

Ed or Jeff, is this donation/raffle ticket indeed a proper tax deductible donation for folks in the US?

[heyitsme]

15 minutes ago, Jeff Mack said:

 

That makes no sense. It is normal billing information. Also how else do you think they get the information to send a winner their prizes. We can't send the sets to nowhere and think you will just get it.

Also you can just donate via PayPal if the rest bothers you. Not sure what was so much.

i dont know who rallyup is or what they do with personal information...... i could have just paid for the tickets through paypal and then "if" i win, the sender of the prize, could then get a shipping address.

[thoroakenfelder]

20 minutes ago, Jeff Mack said:

 

That makes no sense. It is normal billing information. Also how else do you think they get the information to send a winner their prizes. We can't send the sets to nowhere and think you will just get it.

Also you can just donate via PayPal if the rest bothers you. Not sure what was so much.

Not to mention credit card authorization usually requires address verification for security purposes.

[Lordoflego]

24 minutes ago, Phil B said:

$48k passed .... Just wanted to remind you all about my prediction from 3 weeks ago . To celebrate my clearvoyance, I added one more ticket to my tally

I didn't see your post from 3 weeks ago but I'm assuming you stated that it would reach $50k, or that last few days will be surprising, right? Well, I may just be watching you from now on and see how accurate you are when it comes to Lego  

Edited January 31, 2016 by Lordoflego

[Phil B]

8 minutes ago, Lordoflego said:

I didn't see your post from 3 weeks ago but I'm assuming you stated that it would reach $50k, or that last few days will be surprising, right? Well, I may just be watching you from now on and see how accurate you are when it comes to Lego  

Hmmm .. I quoted the post in my post just now ... anyways, I said the slow start was all due to procrastination

[Lordoflego]

6 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Hmmm .. I quoted the post in my post just now ... anyways, I said the slow start was all due to procrastination

Lol. Sorry, it's been a long day...

[Jeff Mack]

One thing struck me in the rallyup purchase, it comes with this templated, non-completed message:

"For income tax purposes, it is important for us to state that you did not receive any goods or services in connection with these contributions. Your contribution is tax-deductible.{Name of Tax Exempt Org} is a non-profit corporation and is recognized as a tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Service code 501(3)."

Ed or Jeff, is this donation/raffle ticket indeed a proper tax deductible donation for folks in the US?

That is not their fault, probably mine for not seeing everything to update. Yes we have answered the question many times in this thread about the tax exemption and people have posted the EIN. It was also mentioned in the summary. This also never would have been possible if they weren't. It took days to get it approved while it was checked by them with the IRS.

[Phil B]

6 minutes ago, Jeff Mack said:

That is not their fault, probably mine for not seeing everything to update. Yes we have answered the question many times in this thread about the tax exemption and people have posted the EIN. It was also mentioned in the summary. This also never would have been possible if they weren't. It took days to get it approved while it was checked by them with the IRS.

Sorry Jeff - this is one of the few threads here I haven't read front-to-back so I must have missed it. Reading back now.

[MathBuilder]

41 minutes ago, heyitsme said:

i dont know who rallyup is or what they do with personal information...... i could have just paid for the tickets through paypal and then "if" i win, the sender of the prize, could then get a shipping address.

You can paypal Ed and he will send you the ticket numbers, see previous posts here. Heck you can paypal me and tell me what to buy, I would buy them for you (wouldn't hurt to know the current ticket numbers for stuff :P)

[Lawpepperdine]

It is my understanding that any raffle purchase is not tax deductible.  A pure donation would be which is an option.  Probably has already been stated, just wanted to clarify based on Phil's post which said donation/raffle.

Regardless of deductibility, this is an amazing cause, a great chance at fun prizes (for those going the raffle route), and an amazing opportunity to be part of the brickpicker grass-roots movement!  Dang, I must be watching too many presidential debates....

[Phil B]

6 minutes ago, Lawpepperdine said:

It is my understanding that any raffle purchase is not tax deductible.  A pure donation would be which is an option.  Probably has already been stated, just wanted to clarify based on Phil's post which said donation/raffle.

Regardless of deductibility, this is an amazing cause, a great chance at fun prizes (for those going the raffle route), and an amazing opportunity to be part of the brickpicker grass-roots movement!  Dang, I must be watching too many presidential debates....

Yes .. I was asking from a raffle perspective. I didn't expect it to be deductible, but then the text at the bottom of the purchase confirmation threw me off, hence the question. I would have validated it with my CPA anyways

[dinner41]

2 hours ago, Jeff Mack said:

That makes no sense. It is normal billing information. Also how else do you think they get the information to send a winner their prizes.

It does, but they could also only actually ask the winners and not collect info from the other 99.9% of people. The info they wanted also turned me almost away (actually did twice before I  though: to hell with it, how else should I get my money to Ed - I did not read about direct paypal to him back then yet or would have done that). They should really make it easier for people to donate without giving all that information.

One question I have: do you (Ed) have access to all that information? That would be kind of scary.

Edited January 31, 2016 by dinner41

[jbacunn]

4 hours ago, Roy vd M. said:

So this being a Lego investment forum and all, I thought it might be a good idea to write a small post about which raffle tickets to purchase, with only a few hours to go before this set of opportunities becomes a retired product*. 

 

Nice analysis. You convinced me to buy a couple more tickets. 

[Guest brickcrazyhouse]

[heyitsme]

2 hours ago, dinner41 said:

It does, but they could also only actually ask the winners and not collect info from the other 99.9% of people. The info they wanted also turned me almost away (actually did twice before I  though: to hell with it, how else should I get my money to Ed - I did not read about direct paypal to him back then yet or would have done that). They should really make it easier for people to donate without giving all that information.

One question I have: do you (Ed) have access to all that information? That would be kind of scary.

last year my bank locked my accounts and called me and asked if i was traveling around europe spending thousands of dollars at various stores.....of course i wasnt.....buts someone pretending to be me was.....so am i a bit gunshy about handing out my information when i feel its not exactly needed upfront...thankfully the bank didnt make me pay for the losses.

[Jeff Mack]

6 hours ago, dinner41 said:

One question I have: do you (Ed) have access to all that information? That would be kind of scary.

Personally I am taking major offense to this.  Ed and I do not have access to anyone's info. We have never asked for it here on Brickpicker and this is why we went with a professional third party service.  RallyUp is asking for billing information just like any online retailer out there.  Perhaps they need it to show the IRS at the end of the year who contributed or just like someone else stated, they have to ask that for billing fraud.  We don't have access to anyone's info other than sometimes a name (sometimes blank), email, date and contribution.  That is all.  I sure hope that those of you that are complaining about entering in billing info have never bought anything online.  I guess it's ok if you bought something on eBay and now that person has your mailing address, or I sure hope you don't buy anything on Amazon, Walmart, etc,etc,etc.  Your information is all already all over if you have.

This fundraiser has been going on for over a month. You had plenty of time to research it, make a phone call, send us a PM and we would have gotten an answer for you.'

I am going to create a special award called the Fundraiser Party Pooper Award.