Indonesian Tsunami kills at least 43

[Dan Druff]

If a tsunami in Indonesia in late December seems familiar, it should. A huge tsunami in 2004 killed thousands.

Here is footage from the one today:

[Dan Druff]

Some of you might remember when Pokerstars collected donations from players for the 2004 tsunami relief effort, with the promise to match it.

Generous, right?

Well, kind of, but I was annoyed by the way the whole thing went down.

I don't like donating to charity through third party companies. Why? A few reasons. You don't know if the money will really get to the charity. You are often giving the company a tax write-off for YOUR donation. The company may use the donation for marketing purposes by bragging about "their" donation which really came from customers.

You would donate by registering for a "tournament" (which didn't actually run) for $100.

Well, Pokerstars had a list of the donors, and every single high limit player there had donated $100 except for me and a few others.

People started giving me a really hard time for it, so finally I was guilted into also donating $100. Part of me wanted to just donate the $100 directly to relief efforts, but I figured Pokerstars was fairly honest and I did like how they would match my $100.

Pokerstars ended up receiving like $178k worth of donations from players. Then they announced that not only were they matching the donations, but they were rounding it up to $200k, and thus donating $400k.

Everyone was thrilled, but I was irritated. This meant that Pokerstars would have donated the same $400k whether I gave my $100 or not, meaning I simply threw away that $100. Had I donated the $100 directly to relief efforts, then that would have been $100 more overall received for relief.

Still, I rationalized that any individual donor could say that, and technically the group of us brought it up to $178k which made Pokerstars round it up. So fine.

But then I was watching TV that week, and saw a celebrity-studded show where they raised money for tsunami relief. Out came Lee Jones with a $400k giant check in hand.

"This is from Pokerstars", said Jones.

I felt really stupid. Not only didn't my last minute $100 donation end up mattering, but I helped pay for a marketing effort by Pokerstars -- exactly what I feared in the first place.

That was the last time I ever gave to charity through a corporation.

[limitles]

Some of you might remember when Pokerstars collected donations from players for the 2004 tsunami relief effort, with the promise to match it.

Generous, right?

Well, kind of, but I was annoyed by the way the whole thing went down.

I don't like donating to charity through third party companies. Why? A few reasons. You don't know if the money will really get to the charity. You are often giving the company a tax write-off for YOUR donation. The company may use the donation for marketing purposes by bragging about "their" donation which really came from customers.

You would donate by registering for a "tournament" (which didn't actually run) for $100.

Well, Pokerstars had a list of the donors, and every single high limit player there had donated $100 except for me and a few others.

People started giving me a really hard time for it, so finally I was guilted into also donating $100. Part of me wanted to just donate the $100 directly to relief efforts, but I figured Pokerstars was fairly honest and I did like how they would match my $100.

Pokerstars ended up receiving like $178k worth of donations from players. Then they announced that not only were they matching the donations, but they were rounding it up to $200k, and thus donating $400k.

Everyone was thrilled, but I was irritated. This meant that Pokerstars would have donated the same $400k whether I gave my $100 or not, meaning I simply threw away that $100. Had I donated the $100 directly to relief efforts, then that would have been $100 more overall received for relief.

Still, I rationalized that any individual donor could say that, and technically the group of us brought it up to $178k which made Pokerstars round it up. So fine.

But then I was watching TV that week, and saw a celebrity-studded show where they raised money for tsunami relief. Out came Lee Jones with a $400k giant check in hand.

"This is from Pokerstars", said Jones.

I felt really stupid. Not only didn't my last minute $100 donation end up mattering, but I helped pay for a marketing effort by Pokerstars -- exactly what I feared in the first place.

That was the last time I ever gave to charity through a corporation.

I don't get the math here. PS received 178k in donations, they doubled that and bumped it up to an even 4k. Are you saying PokerStars neglected to mention the details where players donated and they matched?
I can see the point but when you donate a hundred bucks do you expect to receive some personal pat on the back.
They have these "events" not just to praise the big donors but to encourage others to do the same.
In the end you're bitching over a hundred bucks that you were shamed into donating

[Dan Druff]

Some of you might remember when Pokerstars collected donations from players for the 2004 tsunami relief effort, with the promise to match it.

Generous, right?

Well, kind of, but I was annoyed by the way the whole thing went down.

I don't like donating to charity through third party companies. Why? A few reasons. You don't know if the money will really get to the charity. You are often giving the company a tax write-off for YOUR donation. The company may use the donation for marketing purposes by bragging about "their" donation which really came from customers.

You would donate by registering for a "tournament" (which didn't actually run) for $100.

Well, Pokerstars had a list of the donors, and every single high limit player there had donated $100 except for me and a few others.

People started giving me a really hard time for it, so finally I was guilted into also donating $100. Part of me wanted to just donate the $100 directly to relief efforts, but I figured Pokerstars was fairly honest and I did like how they would match my $100.

Pokerstars ended up receiving like $178k worth of donations from players. Then they announced that not only were they matching the donations, but they were rounding it up to $200k, and thus donating $400k.

Everyone was thrilled, but I was irritated. This meant that Pokerstars would have donated the same $400k whether I gave my $100 or not, meaning I simply threw away that $100. Had I donated the $100 directly to relief efforts, then that would have been $100 more overall received for relief.

Still, I rationalized that any individual donor could say that, and technically the group of us brought it up to $178k which made Pokerstars round it up. So fine.

But then I was watching TV that week, and saw a celebrity-studded show where they raised money for tsunami relief. Out came Lee Jones with a $400k giant check in hand.

"This is from Pokerstars", said Jones.

I felt really stupid. Not only didn't my last minute $100 donation end up mattering, but I helped pay for a marketing effort by Pokerstars -- exactly what I feared in the first place.

That was the last time I ever gave to charity through a corporation.

I don't get the math here. PS received 178k in donations, they doubled that and bumped it up to an even 4k. Are you saying PokerStars neglected to mention the details where players donated and they matched?
I can see the point but when you donate a hundred bucks do you expect to receive some personal pat on the back.
They have these "events" not just to praise the big donors but to encourage others to do the same.
In the end you're bitching over a hundred bucks that you were shamed into donating

I'll explain.

Take these three possible scenarios:

1) I donate $100 through the Pokerstars client (as I really did).
Result: $400,000 goes to the tsunami relief

2) I refuse to donate anything to the relief effort.
Result: $400,000 goes to the tsunami relief

3) I donate $100 directly to the relief effort, and do not involve Pokerstars.
Results: $400,100 goes to the tsunami relief

As you can see, my $100 was meaningless. The $400k check was being cut either way.

I thought my $100 donation was going to mean $200 more was going to the relief effort ($100 mine, $100 from Stars). In reality, Stars would have donated the exact same whether or not I had donated anything.

But my bigger problem was the fact that Pokerstars took credit for the donation on national TV, and they got marketing value out of the donations (which wasn't stated at the time they were collecting them).

Had Pokerstars been honest and said, "We're doubling the donation and then are going to present it on national TV", I would have declined to donate through Stars, as I don't pay for companies to market themselves.

At the time, I bitched about this whole thing on NWP, and Lee Jones actually created an account on there to defend the situation. He insisted that he DID say half the donation was from the players, but I swear I never heard that. There was no way for me to verify this after-the-fact, because it had already aired, and there was no YouTube in 2004.

[limitles]

I don't get the math here. PS received 178k in donations, they doubled that and bumped it up to an even 4k. Are you saying PokerStars neglected to mention the details where players donated and they matched?
I can see the point but when you donate a hundred bucks do you expect to receive some personal pat on the back.
They have these "events" not just to praise the big donors but to encourage others to do the same.
In the end you're bitching over a hundred bucks that you were shamed into donating

I'll explain.

Take these three possible scenarios:

1) I donate $100 through the Pokerstars client (as I really did).
Result: $400,000 goes to the tsunami relief

2) I refuse to donate anything to the relief effort.
Result: $400,000 goes to the tsunami relief

3) I donate $100 directly to the relief effort, and do not involve Pokerstars.
Results: $400,100 goes to the tsunami relief

As you can see, my $100 was meaningless. The $400k check was being cut either way.

I thought my $100 donation was going to mean $200 more was going to the relief effort ($100 mine, $100 from Stars). In reality, Stars would have donated the exact same whether or not I had donated anything.

But my bigger problem was the fact that Pokerstars took credit for the donation on national TV, and they got marketing value out of the donations (which wasn't stated at the time they were collecting them).

Had Pokerstars been honest and said, "We're doubling the donation and then are going to present it on national TV", I would have declined to donate through Stars, as I don't pay for companies to market themselves.

At the time, I bitched about this whole thing on NWP, and Lee Jones actually created an account on there to defend the situation. He insisted that he DID say half the donation was from the players, but I swear I never heard that. There was no way for me to verify this after-the-fact, because it had already aired, and there was no YouTube in 2004.

No one knew that Stars was going to round up to the nearest hundred thousand. That was not known prior to them doing it.
So indeed your 100 dollars was indeed doubled. If you had sent your hundred through another agency chances are the full amount would not
be received because of the portion these relief agencies keep for themselves.

Case dismissed

[Gordman]

If a tsunami in Indonesia in late December seems familiar, it should. A huge tsunami in 2004 killed thousands.

Here is footage from the one today:

Druff, this video is not from the tsunami that just happened. I thought this looked somewhat familiar - its from the tsunami in Palu a few months ago.

Apparently the Indonesian tsunami that just happened was at night

I'll try to find footage, but naturally there really isn't much out there (at least yet)