ShopGoodWillReviews 651

Want to know if these reviews are REAL? I have:
Paid for items and received someone else's merchandise
Paid for items and have received them with little or no secure packaging (tiny items were falling out of the box just by being CARRIED to deliver).
Paid for items and didn't receive them for over 1-2 weeks on a REGULAR basis
Paid for items that were shipped to another buyer of a different item
Paid for items that were received so badly broken, it produced cuts and blood upon opening
Paid for items that were more than $100 and no insurance or delivery proof was provided. Item never received but charged. Waited weeks and weeks to get the item or a refund, finally got a credit after over a month.
Paid for items with inflated shipping weight AND/OR multiple items that were not able to be combined for no valid reason
Paid for items that were damaged after purchasing, meaning received item that was not in the same condition as photos presented
Witnessed one store in particular who overcharges on every single thing (high start price, high buy it now price, high ship weight, AND high ship cost
Seen many items priced at OVER retail or competitor price for same or less value- meaning you can buy it NEW for less or USED for less on auction site
Been very forgiving for all of this until multiple items were supposedly lost. Things happen, BUT they were then relisted less than two weeks later. All "lost" items had final bids of less than $20- coincidence? Doubtful. Many people have had the same thing happen. There is no recourse, no way to leave feedback, and no way to report the fraudulent behavior. Nor do I think they care and I wonder if this is actually encouraged on a large scale. Some employees and stored are wonderful. Some are horrible. But randomly issuing refunds for "inventory lost" and then turning around and trying to sell it days or weeks later to try to get a higher price from someone else is dishonesty.
And yes, I have proof of all of this. Something needs to happen because it seems these issues are wide and varied with shopgoodwill.com
It is ridiculous that this exists, and even more disgusting that it is at the hands of a charity.

They sure collect the money and do not ship this store needs to be shut down, I am contacting Pay Pal to no longer do any transactions with ShopGoodwill.com.

I just noticed when paying for an item, that they now have an "additional donation" charge. The total was $15.82 and they rounded it up to $16.00 without authorization, they hid it as Sales Tax, but if I am in IL, why am I paying Sales Tax in California?. When in the store they ask you so it's a choice, but now on line they are doing it automatically. I'm sorry but the goods are donated, they sell it, they over charge shipping, they charge handling fees (it's a real effort to put it in a box and ship it). And don't get me started on their "AS IS" electronics - Translation - BROKEN.

I have purchased from this site for a few years now. However there are some stores on this sites that over charge for there shipping-handling fees. When you question them they ignore you and then your account is disabled. However they are some stores on here that are honest about shipping fees and they will even reduce there handling fees when you purchase more than 1 item. The way they run this site is terrible because dishonest stores -cause lost of money for the stores who are honest with there fees. In the end good will loses good shoppers because of this nonsense. Bad way to run business, cause they lose business.

I am a camera reseller- I buy old cameras, fix them and then resell them. I used to buy from GW online auctions for over a year before I finally had enough of there overpriced junk, manipulated pricing, and severely awful or non-existent customer service. Yes- shipping and handling fees are astronomical and worse that they vary from region to region. And they are always overpriced and shipping overweight. Interesting enough- you won't find cameras actually in a local stores anymore- the local stores do not know how to price vintage cameras. So the local stores ship the cameras to regional warehouses and then starting bids are priced higher for online auction only. But the bidding is the key to the scam- bids on cameras are almost always higher or exactly the same as ebay prices for the same item- except ebay guarantees returns and bidders are not 100% anonymous- Goodwill does not! Why would anyone buy a 30 year old camera at a premium price- higher than ebay- and with no guarantee? 90% of the cameras I bought were broken or needing some repair. So why buy here? I followed certain brands over a year-like the Canon AE-1 -it ALWAYS sells for $86-$91 and they sell like 10 a day. How is that possible? An Olympus OM2 with a few worthless accessories just sold for $100- $4 handling fee and to me would have been $18 shipping. On ebay there is the same exact camera (tested and guaranteed) with 4 lenses for $35--no handling fee and $7.85 shipping! Today there is a Leicaflex camera just listed -and with in minutes 5 anonymous bidders have it already priced it at $353. I just sold 2 Leicaflex's in mint condition on ebay for $325- and it took me over a year to sell them! IT IS AS BAD AS ANY NEGATIVE REVIEW ON HERE! But I will say this- if you want to win on GW Online auction- you only have to bid $1 more than GW price fixer.

Bought a 14lb rock collection in 2016 with labeled specimen names. The auction went super low for once and I thought I got a great deal for some beautiful mineral specimens. When the order was delivered 3 weeks later I opened the box to find 14 lbs of white landscape rocks (The same rocks in front of their store). When I called they said the sent the wrong order to my house and "we are waiting to hear back from the person who received your order so we can switch them out" Funny thing is, they were NEVER selling a 14lb box of white rocks! Also, imagine my surprise when I found several of the EXACT photographs used on an ebay auction from the same city! (No reply from seller). The second was a for a gold nugget (aprox 4 grams) encased in acrylic for a desktop from another location. The auction only went to $12 and I was really surprised! When my package arrived I discovered I was the proud owner of a silver plated duck sugar bowl. Again I was told the exact same line "we are waiting to hear back from the person who received your order so we can switch them out". Weeks later I conducted an experiment where I called the store and inquired about a small stainless steel spoon with "Texas" written on it. I told the lady I was bidding on it and told her it was worth about $200 and was so happy that it was only at $3. The next day the price jumped up to $160.

Such a hypocritical scamming outfit, no wonder there are nonprofit organizations popping up everywhere, It's a way to hide all the millions they make, it is just another way to hide the money that they're saving and taxes from the IRS, the IRS is ignorant to the fact of the money they're losing with all these nonprofit organizations that supposedly help the communities. I suggest people that donate there items, donate to the small organizations that actually do something for there communities, like homelessness, addiction, child abduction, tee homelessness, and so on people that are donating to goodwills stores are just making the CEOs and the uppers wealthy.

Clearly scam 101. The estimated shipping idea is ridiculous. It doesn't cost $15 to ship a t shirt. The customer service is crap. I bought an item didn't get the item shown. Instead of a $100 board game I received one valued at $10. Contacted them sent photos and all. Asked for some sort of plan to work it out and got silence. I also don't believe the prices that some of these auctions are going for. No way they are selling for triple actual retail value. Seems rigged. The store managers are running the website as their own business. I miss the days before this website when you could actually find good treasures at a retail store. Now it's all on here for inflated prices. RIP to thrifting

I have purchase some items from them and have learned their system. Check everything very carefully before bidding. Shipping and handling charges are excessive so factor that in. I purchased a print today from our local store online. I didn't notice until I got home that it had a rip on the edge. They had a tag clipped over rip. When I emailed store they said it was obvious in pictures. (It wasn't) I didn't pay much for it, so it isn't a big loss. There customer service sucks so don't expect any.

Okay, so i'm going to be honest I buy for personal and to resale. I will say this site is really good if you are looking for designer items to source. I have bought alot of nice clothes from here and shoe lots. I also have bought my kids alot of things off of here that were new. I love the site and glad i found it. The only issue i have is the shipping can be pricey sometimes and the time to get the item can take sometimes over a week because it may take the company 5 days to ship out an item. Other than that this site is a really great site to get good items from. I have bought over 50 auctions from this site and I love everything I have gotten.

So the first thing to say here is I would not consider most of the negative reviews here to be of much use. Most of these reviews come from "pickers" who make a living buying things from goodwill (the charity) on the cheap and then reselling them for a profit. They used to do this at the local good will store, but Goodwill got smarter and decided to cut them out completely and put the Items up for bid to a large audience of experts who could more accurately price an item based on its worth. It is exactly the same way E-bay works. The larger the competitive bidder pool and audience, the better chance somebody bidding knows what something is worth and will push the price up close to the actual market price. Pickers for YEARS made their livings exploiting the fact that a local goodwill had no inherent knowledge of antiques or other things so to move stuff they priced it low as a guess. So all of the moaning and complaints here is mostly coming from these pickers and collectors who suddenly now have to pay market price for something and can no longer make easy profits fleecing a local charity for their own personal gain. Sorry guys, the internet gets rid of middlemen (YOU). Get over it. Find a new scam. As a long time customer of the goodwill auctions site I have found them to be fairly good. Most of the complaints here about shipping are off base too as shipping costs have risen. A LOT in the last few years. And they also have to pay for the box, packing materials, and an employees time to box and ship things. I don't find the price unreasonable or much different than I pay to ship similar items on Ebay. The only real gripe I have with them is how SLOW they are to ship things. Some times after buying It can take up to a week for them to even print the shipping label, and then another week for them to box something up, and then 3 more days for it to get dropped off at fedex or USPS. This is really the only thing I think they could improve on is a commitment to faster shipping of paid items. Seriously. It should not take a month for me to get my paid merchandise. That is ridiculous.

Be sure of what you are buying as all items are sold "AS-IS"

If you use the ticket system its totally useless, staff are just blindly reading comments and respond with info that makes no sense.

For example some identical items will have outrageous shipping rates, from the exact same store. They will increase the weight just to charge you more and prevent items from being bundled.

Item protection is trash, they will literally throw the item into a HUGE cardboard box and then its basically rubble when it arrives.

Use with caution, some items can be a good buy, but most of the time its a hit/miss.

Website also sucks when it comes to lagging, notifications come in AFTER the listing ends.

If you watch the same items on eBay as on shopgoodwill you will notice the bids on shopgoodwill are exceeding every bid on eBay. As someone stated they've jacked up shipping prices to ridiculous amounts. They quote an item at 25 lbs for shipping then the actual weight will say 11.3 lbs. Shipping prices even at your local USPS don't cost that much. Someone should also investigate who is making this bids because if they are exceeding eBay bids for broken or as is items then I believe something fishy is going on here and not to mention these are donated items. Goodwill claims to give back to the community but I've never seen their name involved in anything that wasn't their own. The managers or whoever is posting their items online must be making a percentage. There is no customer service, just individual store managers to answer you. I also believe but could be wrong that is was Orange county that started the online site. I'm pretty sure they oversee everything. If you have disputes they could end up getting you suspended.