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Comment by vxNsr | Hacker News Reader

This isn’t surprising. Your local grocery chain store does the same thing when they ask if you want to donate to whatever charity they’re promoting that month. At least there it’s obviously a “finders fee” as they wouldn’t get the amount of engagement if not for the store. But if you want to donate to a place always do it directly. Facebook also takes a good chunk.

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> Your local grocery chain store does the same thing when they ask if you want to donate to whatever charity they’re promoting that month.

No, they don't. This, and the related idea that they're doing it for a tax benefit, are myths.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244

"Rather than receiving a customer’s donation as income, the company serves as a holding agent for that money, Zaretsky said. Customers may tally up their cash register donations for their own tax returns, but stores are not allowed to claim those."

> Facebook also takes a good chunk.

I went and check. Doesn’t seems so. 0% for charitable organizations (which means they loose money as they need to cover payment processing fees) and less than 2% in most cases for personal ones (which seems to be in line with general payment fees).

https://www.facebook.com/help/901370616673951

Are there any other fees they don’t tell us about there?

I'm sure Facebook is large enough to strong arm an excellent deal from their processors for those transactions.

Not sure that VISA or MasterCard are going to roll over on their fees for Facebook.

Both have lower interchange rates specific to charities; it's highly likely Facebook can flag the charitable donation transactions as such.

I doubt they bother, they probably just pay whatever low fees they negotiate and then count the fees they have to pay for the charitable ones out of their slush fund and count it as an expense. It's not like they aren't getting income in other areas.

The marketplaces that are entirely charitable stuff have to charge or source (they often have a checkbox you can use to "donate" to cover the fees, so you give $10.30 instead of $10 so the charity gets $10).

Perhaps in your area that is happening, but not in mine (NJ). 70% fee is outrageous. 20% would even be difficult to swallow. But there are grocery chains that do the right thing. As with any charitable giving, you need to be aware of who you're giving money to and how they'll be using the money.

As far as I can tell that's inaccurate. Grocery stores do it pro-bono to show they care about the community.

https://thegrocerystoreguy.com/why-do-grocery-stores-ask-for...

I’d consider that a donation to the grocery store and worthwhile. Those are some of the worst, lowest paying jobs. People treat retail workers horribly and grocery is where everybody goes. And grocery is known for awful margins.

Tiktok is just the long arm of the CCP.

Don't kid yourself. Grocery store executives are doing just fine for themselves. Donating does not make life any better for the front line workers.

If you want to help, support your local independent stores and avoid the chains. I know that's not practical for everyone and can be more expensive but better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap.

"better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap."

Unless you take them out of the bloated salaries and perks of upper management...

Even for the millions-paid CEOs it doesn't end up much when divided out among all the workers.

You can do much more for retail workers as a customer by not being an ass and by doing things like putting things back where you found them instead of leaving eggs in amongst the produce, etc.

Huh? This is when you go to the grocery story and at checkout they ask if you want to donate to the Red Cross or St Judes Hospital for Children or some other large well known charity. This isn't a donation to the employees, although I've seen tip jars you could use to tip the folk who bag your groceries if you'd like.

Thankfully, it appears, according to another responder that they're not taking chunks of money out of these donations and they're getting to the charities.

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