It is difficult to express how disappointed and angry we are with how Razoo handled #GivingTuesday this year. In fact, we feel your tactic of automatically adding a large “tip” for Razoo to every donation this year was deceptive to donors.

As you may know, Big Cat Rescue came in second this year in your Large Nonprofits:Most Dollars Raised category and we had by far the most unique donations. I mention this only so that you understand that more than 1100 of our donors donated through Razoo on #GivingTuesday.

Although we used Razoo’s platform in 2015 for #GivingTuesday, I did considerable research regarding other options in the months leading up to #GivingTuesday 2016 and literally pored over the details of your website and asked questions of your support team. I was very pleased to see that Razoo would be waiving your 4% platform fee on #GivingTuesday and retaining just 2.9%. I had also read in your rules section that Razoo “donors would have the option to tip Razoo,” but was not concerned as it was optional.

Fast forward to #GivingTuesday. We started getting calls and emails from donors who were confused and concerned about the “tip” that was added to their donations and showing up on their receipts. So we walked through the steps to donate ourselves and were shocked to see that a BIG 15% tip (at least for donations up to $100) was being AUTOMATICALLY added to each donation! It also was not readily apparent that donors could opt of the tip or reduce it. The link to change the tip amount was so small it didn’t even look like a link. And when I saw that the “No tip” box had a frowning emoji face, I literally felt sick to my stomach! How dare you try to influence our donors like that just to make money for yourselves.

You waived your 4% platform fee and then turned around and automatically charged people a 15% tip! We had to field calls from angry and confused donors all day and night during #GivingTuesday. Some accused us of being aware of your automatic tip and condoning it! We NEVER would have signed up with Razoo for #GivingTuesday had we know these deceptive tactics would be used.

You should be ashamed of yourselves for making such a big deal out of waiving your platform fee and then tricking people into donating a large percentage to Razoo if they didn’t notice the “tip” or couldn’t figure out how to eliminate it! I can’t help but wonder how many of our wonderful donors were turned off by your donation page and decided not to donate and may never again. Razoo should be in the business of helping nonprofits build strong relationships with donors, not alienate them!

Susan Bass
Director of Public Relations at Big Cat Rescue

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