Doesn't eBay/MissionFish take a portion of the winning bid? If the charitable processing fee is around 10% like I've read elsewhere on the net, then wouldn't the Starbucks card need to be sold for just over $550 dollars for your charity to get the card value equivalent? (As of this post, the winning bid is only at $510.) I may be wrong about this, I don't use eBay.

Auction mechanics aside, I see more backlash than praise for the way you and your brother used the Jonathanscard social experiment. If your intent all along was to promote your competition and to only take out the funds you put in, then why did your brother appear "holier than thou" with how the money should be used? He comes across as insulting and presumptuous of those who contributed to the gift card with the statement that the experiment is only, "Yuppies buying yuppies coffee." Also, for those not knowing what is going on behind the scenes, some would consider the means and the amount of funds transferred as unethical, regardless of how you intended to use your gains. The end does not justify the means. I'm not sure if that was you or your brother's intent, but if you think insulting people and possibly being perceived as unethical is a good marketing strategy, I am unsure what kind of people or personality type you are trying to attract to your promotion.

Dylan, thanks for taking the time to provide your thoughts.

I'll invite Sam to comment in this thread so he can give you any perspective he has on what he wrote.

Not sure about eBay fees; I've never tried it.

Socialize piggybacked on Sam's hacking experiment; his motivations (hacking the hack) were different than mine (publicity to a certain audience). Sure, it's always a risk to associate a brand with anything edgy, but I'm happy we took that risk and in the end, the money we donated is going to a good cause.

At first Sam was just a douchebag, but now it's clear that you were guilty of link spamming, attention whoring, hijacking, and possible RL crimes just to get publicity for your own douchey "startup".

diaf.

anon, that's a pretty venomous comment coming from someone afraid to reveal their identity.

if by "diaf" you mean "die in a fire" (http://go.drod.io/oYt2kd) then I would ask you, is any of this really worth threatening someone's life over?

So basically you just hi-jacked the experiment so you could spam your links and 'pretend to donate money to the card'. I was foolish to believe you ever had good intentions when you first added money to the card.

The responsible thing to do is to give all the money back to the starbucks card, and report the vulnerability to Jonathan as soon as you did it, and not milk it out until people caught you out.

It shows you are dishonest and are willing to go to such lengths for your own benefit whilst insulting everyone else who participates in the experiment.

Also we still do not know if Sam (and his group of people) took 625 only. How do you know he didnt take more than that? You can't trust a thief.

@anu, I think your point boils down to control and attitude. While @jonathanscard felt like it gave the world control over something where there previously wasn't any, Sam's hack felt like it took that control away. And that's a valid point. I totally get that. What's really hit me is how much @jonathanscard represented *hope* to people. Hope that the world is a better place, because an anonymous person is putting funds towards the ability of a complete stranger to gain a benefit.

@fromhn, the money is being donated to starving children in Africa... I don't know about you, but I'd count that as a good intention. If I can read between the lines, I think what you're saying is that it's not the good intention that *you* intended -- you wanted to brighten up a person's day by allowing them to get free coffee. And as per my reply above to @anu, that's totally a valid feeling; I get that.

(BTW, the money can't be put back on the starbucks card; Starbucks turned the card off.)

People didn't 'catch' Sam -- he wrote a blog post about what he did because he thought it was a cool hack (which it was, from a hacking perspective). He's not a thief, he has no need or desire to siphon money off a social experiment and then steal it.

Sam's intentions were to take the hack to another level -- or 'hacking the hack.' Obviously there are many vocal people who feel like by having the control of 'paying it forward' taken away, they also had *hope* in the world taken away. That's a pretty powerful sentiment. It shows that there's this really deep rooted need in all of us to believe that a pay it forward system can succeed.

Some people aren't as negative towards the hack -- one person wrote me via email "And for what its worth, all your brother did was take a social hack another step, I don't really see the problem".

At the end of the day, I think there's an incredible opportunity here for someone to create a "pay it forward" type of system for a charity that hits on all these points that are so important to people. Jonathan said that the people taking from the card were about a 2:1 ratio from those paying onto the card. Seems that as a collective, we take about 2x as often as we give. So as long as some benefactor was willing to fund that differential, the system would work splendidly. But therein lies the rub, and the question: Who's going to cover that cost, and is there a way to bring it up to parity?

>(BTW, the money can't be put back on the starbucks card; Starbucks turned the card off.)

But you can give the money back to Jonathan and let him decide what to do with it.

> because he thought it was a cool hack
multiple instore transfers at the POS is not very cool or interesting at all really. After he filled up a card to a 500$ limit, why did he go onto a second card? Why did you not stop and tell Jonathan of this vulnerability. Instead - you even stated something like donating 5000$ to the card, that is just advertising and spamming the HN forums for personal gain. If you donate, just donate no need to announce it to the world, and no need to take other peoples money to do it. How much do you donate to charities? Are you and Sam charitable people, or was the ebay sale a last minute idea? Was Sam intending to keep the money and buy an iPad. I feel there is something amiss from the statements and posts Sam has made which seem disingenious and leave a sour taste. pardon the pun.

Also, the fact that he wrote a script to monitor the balance implies that even though the balances between you Sam zero out, he is still taking other peoples money. His last blog post do not reference your company's advertising. Were your companies donations ever meant to be just for the pot? Did you know about Sam's ability to transfer money on the cards from the counter right from the start?

I mean, Sam was sitting in starbucks for five hours for an uninteresting hack, and taking (at least) $625, and still not realising that 'many people were invested in this'. That part of the blog just doesnt add up.

Sam, Sam, Sam. Too funny.

Now if only you could hack the federal reserve and bring hunger to an end!