Holiday Charity Auction 2006

This being the season of giving, we're giving you the opportunity to get your hands on some of the season's hottest phones, for yourself or to give as a present. But in order to get them, you'll have to do some giving of your own. It's time for another Phone Scoop charity auction. As with our past auctions, the money you bid won't go into our pockets, but directly to a charity. This year we've chosen the The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria- the same charity that (RED) products benefit.

Bono and his (Product) RED campaign have started to raise awareness of the devastation that diseases - some of which we don't even think about anymore as Americans - have wrought across Africa. 950 people die each day from AIDS in South Africa alone, and that's just one disease in one country. The Global Fund is trying to fight three deadly diseases around the developing world, not just in Africa but in Asia and Latin America too.

When you buy a (RED) RAZR, $17 is donated to the Global Fund. That's a great start, but we here at Phone Scoop want to give you the opportunity to donate more, and have more choices of phones.

Today we start bidding for some serious bits of kit (as the English would say): the latest QWERTY phones we know you'll love and a few sleek handsets for good measure. Last year we held an auction to raise money for the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina. That time we raised $6000 from auctions across a number of sites. This time Phone Scoop is going it alone, but we have a number of truly hot phones for you to bid on, and hope we can raise a tidy sum to help slow or stop the spread of Tuberculosis, Malaria and AIDS.

Black, Blue, Green... and Red

Over the course of the past few months, manufacturers and carriers have provided the following handsets:

• T-Mobile Dash
• T-Mobile Limited Edition LRG Sidekick 3
• Samsung BlackJack for Cingular
• Motorola KRZR K1 (Unlocked GSM, blue)
• Samsung i320 (Unlocked GSM)
• Samsung M500 for Sprint (red)
• Helio Drift (black)

How to win

We are auctioning off the phones in the Phone Scoop forums. In order to bid, you need to register as a phonescoop.com user if you are not one already. This does not cost anything and we value your privacy so you will never be spammed.

Once registered, bidding is simple. Go to the thread for phone you want to win and place a bid at least one dollar higher than the current winning bid. Your bid should be in the subject line of your post. All bids should be in whole dollar amounts.

The bidding will end on Friday, December 8 at 1 pm EST (10 am Pacific). The highest bid in each thread when bidding ends will be the winner.

We will notify winners by email with explicit instructions on how to make your donation directly to the The Global Fund for the amount of the winning bid (or even more if you're feeling generous).

We will notify the winners via email by 4 pm EST on Friday. You will need to check your email account associated with your Phone Scoop account and reply within 24 hours (by 4pm EST Saturday) to confirm your winning bid.

The Global Fund accepts donations by Mastercard, Visa or American Express online. Once we receive confirmation that you have donated an amount equal to or greater than your winning bid, we will request your mailing address and send your prize to arrive within 7 days. (It will probably arrive sooner, but we need to cover our behinds, OK?)

Start your bidding

• T-Mobile Dash
• T-Mobile Limited Edition LRG Sidekick 3
• Samsung BlackJack for Cingular
• Motorola KRZR K1
• Samsung i320
• Samsung M500 for Sprint
• Helio Drift

Rules & Disclaimers

1. The deadline to bid is 1 PM EDT (10 AM PDT) Friday, December 8. The list of eligible bids will be frozen at that time. A bid placed at 12:59:59 will be valid, but one placed at 1:00:00 will not be considered valid.
2. Winners will be contacted via e-mail by 4pm EST on Friday, December 8. 3. In the event a winning bidder fails to reply within 24 hours of being notified, that bid will be disqualified and the next-highest bid will become the winning bid. We will contact the new winning bidder by the next business day, and that person will have 24 hours to confirm, and so forth.
3. A list of winning usernames will be published on this page by Monday, December 11.
4. Please allow 7 days after your donation to the Global Fund has been confirmed to receive your prizes.
5. Winners are guaranteed the prize they bid for, but we cannot guarantee the phone or car kit works with your current wireless service.
6. Phones do not include wireless service.
7. Any suspected attempt to cheat or subvert the bidding process in any way will result in unconditional disqualification of involved user(s).
8. Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung, T-Mobile, their affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors, representatives, agents, and employees (collectively the "Entities") will have no liability or responsibility for any claim arising in connection with this auction or any prize awarded. The entities above have not offered or sponsored this auction in any way. By participating in this auction, bidders agree to release and hold harmless Entities from any and all liability whatsoever for any injuries, losses or damages of any kind arising from or in connection with, either directly or indirectly, 1) the awarding, acceptance, receipt, possession, use and/or misuse of any prize awarded herein; or 2) participation in the auction or any prize related activities, including but not limited to traveling to or from any prize related activity.