Updated: 11/9/2006
PeSA (Professional Ebay Sellers Alliance / Ebay Elite) used to advertise itself as a non-profit, now their stripping that title from as many areas as they publicized it, and going the all greed and profit route.
Avoid all PeSA sellers, if you haven’t already, then you’re a fool!
Joe Cortese supposedly has organized crime ties? Splitting PeSA into 2 companies (PeSA and ECMTA), both shady, I’m sure. Your membership privileges have a price of $240 a year.
This is the same group that supported Scott Samuel and his near takeover of runehq.com and his door axeing antics at ethicaltools.com
It’s all at The Ross Show:
http://therossshow.com/showthread.php?t=6103
http://therossshow.com/showthread.php?t=6129&page=1&pp=50
This is the original post from Jonathan Garriss (Gotham City Online, Joeph Cortese’s puppet) when people started asking questions about the PeSA greediness, after days of non-answers…
gothamcityonline – 10/14/06 08:51 AM (#165)
So let me try to answer some of the questions that were on this forum. I’m sorry I have not been able to answer some of these questions, but I do run a business during the day and I’ve been busy with some New York events at night.
Of course, if I was asked these questions at the Summit when I saw a number of people, I would have been glad to answer them. We, the Board, are not trying to hide anything. One of the reasons we are charging dues, is to have someone committed to PESA to work on communication. Its a tough position, but clearly needs to be filled.
There is no extra money lining anyone’s pockets, expecially not any Board member. As a matter of fact, it has been documented that several Board members have funded PESA to get things done; we even had a number of volunteers float expenses, which is not how an organization should operate.
Now to official org stuff. PESA is incorporated and request non-profit status. But, because of some of the programs of PESA, it could not be a non-profit 501c6 org until we could ensure compliance. A couple issues raised was:
1. Would PESA be involved in any political activities such as lobbying, ie on the issue of regulating eBay sellers as auctioneers, or contacting lawmakers on internet taxation issues?
2. Would one member of PESA gain greater benefit from the org than another and would PESA as an organization be acting in favor on one member on any issues. Well, some of the programs we’ve been working on could hurt us there.
3. There were some reporting requirements, but an accountant would take care of that, so we weren’t worried.
We would have been able to qualify due to the eBay marketplace common interest. PESA’s mission was to work on improving the marketplace as a whole and not just individual businesses.
To date, we have not guaranteed the IRS that we wouldn’t do those things which means we have not been granted non-profit status. Does that mean that PESA is setup to generate profits? Technically yes, but as we all know, PESA has been a money pit since it started. The dues were initiated because I would like the organization to have some resources to improve the way we do things. I am not happy with how the organization runs, or doesn’t run. Our reporting needs to be better, our communication needs to be better, and we need to develop some benefits. Now, the reason it hasn’t happened to date is because there is no money to do it. That is changing now.
ECMTA is a totally separate corp; there are no co-mingling of funds, any dues paid to PESA stay in PESA’s bank account and gets used to support PESA. Also, any member that joins ECMTA does not get into PESA without the review of the Membership Committee. As was announced, PESA members get free access to ECMTA resources when it goes live. Since there are going to be other dues paying members in ECMTA, and PESA members are getting free access, in essence, PESA members are getting other people to carry the cost of their membership.
I hope that I have earned the trust and respect of PESA members to let me get this done. That means that I won’t post as much as I may like, but you should know that its because I think there are tangible improvements I can make in PESA to address the concerns here; and I find that spending my time on those initiatives are more important than chatting. If you don’t believe it, then you should not pay your dues and hope the org finds support elsewhere; if you think things will move forward, then its probably worth staying involved.
I will try to give members an update each week on initiatives. The Board is not ignoring posts, however, the days of Board members fighting with members in a discussion forum are over. This is going to be a professionally run organization, however, we need the resources to get there. I’d like to have the chance to do it.
Sincerely,
Jonathan
