I don't understand, what's the big story here? Amazon offers free shipping to a remote place, whereas normal grocery shops pass the high shipping costs on to consumers. So guy living in this place is using Amazon for the food shopping. Also, he's donating that food to local schools.
Maybe I'm not seeing it but I don't see a generic non-personal term, closest is this:
> Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.
Which seems to not apply here. I've never heard of a non-profit disallowing its members from using prime to benefit the charity, even if they're otherwise careful.
He's accepting donations, and using those to buy food. That means he's reselling the food he buys in exchange for those donations.
I don't think there's an exception if you're not making a profit from the reselling.
"Using prime to benefit the charity" is different if nobody's giving them money to do so, because they aren't selling anything then. But buying something on your account when someone pays you is reselling.
He's accepting donations, and using those to buy food. That means he's reselling the food he buys in exchange for those donations.
That's a really weird definition of "selling". I find it hard to believe that giving away stuff bought with donations is legally considered "selling" in most jurisdictions, including Canada.
Presumably, if he kept the items for himself, the person who donated would have a case against him. So he has a legal obligation to give the items to someone else, which was created when he received money from the donator.
This seems clearly structured as a sale from Amazon to him, and a sale from him to the donator, with instructions to give it to charity.
If it was his own money the case would be a bit murkier, perhaps.
Clearly there's an obligation to use the funds for a specific purpose, but that doesn't mean the donor is buying that food, anymore than a donor to Doctors Without Borders is employing MDs.
Unless the donors are choosing the specific items to be purchased and the specific recipients, I don't see how it can be considered that they have bought anything.
>Clearly there's an obligation to use the funds for a specific purpose, but that doesn't mean the donor is buying that food, anymore than a donor to Doctors Without Borders is employing MDs.
I feel like having an actual charity changes this somewhat, in that it's expected that a charity might not spend all its donations right away, there's overhead, etc. As far as I can tell he's doing this all personally.
A man is buying food and Amazon is shipping it to him. What happens outside of that transaction really has nothing to do with Amazon so long as he isn't profiting from it.
There is no prohibition on non-personal use, and there never will be, since that would mean Prime account holders wouldn't be allowed to use Prime shipping to send gifts to other people, for example for Christmas.
There are two relevant prohibitions in the US amazon terms:
> Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.
He's not reselling or renting the food, so this isn't an issue.
> You may not transfer or assign your Prime membership or any Prime benefits, including promotion codes for Prime memberships or benefits, except as allowed in these terms.
I don't know what his tax structure is, but this is potentially relevant. The simplest possibility is that he receives money in his personal capacity as a sole proprietorship, spends it on food, and deducts the whole amount as a charitable donation. (I have no knowledge whatever of the Canadian tax system, and really only a little of the US tax system.) Assuming that works, he's fine. If that doesn't work, he'll either need to incorporate the charity he's running or pay taxes on the donations he receives. Letting other people directly pay for his orders, such that the money doesn't flow through him, would violate the non-assignability of Prime benefits. If he incorporates as a charity, the charity will need its own Amazon account; it can't use his.
Amazon does offer business accounts with two-day Prime shipping, but their pricing appears to be purposefully unadvertised.
Because you never get any money in exchange for the goods.
Buying using other people's money would make him a purchasing agent, and would violate the prohibition on assigning Prime benefits. But he's not doing that either, he's buying with his own money.
