ShopGoodwill

I bid On 2 Roku boxes and won not knowing that there was only one remote and the main Roku which was the roku 3 Was the one I wanted didn't have A remote And usually you can order a remote but the Roku 3 remote Has a headphone jack and you can only use that remote with it! The reason why I found out is because I researched it And found it on shopgoodwill.com Texas store and I bid on it as well And won I paid for that one gladly! How so the other roku box is not Compatible with my TV because it only has AV Jack's it doesn't have HDMI Yes I should've paid better attention but it's not my fault that basically there's parts missing it's their job to research that stuff I am the buyer they're the seller! Anyways this is part three of the message I received!
3 - If we do not hear from you, in accordance with section 7 of the bidders agreement your privileges may be suspended or terminated.
Seller of this item: Goodwill Industries of South Central Wisconsin, Inc.
Seller City: Madison, WI
Now tell me please how is it legal for them to be dishonest and sale items which are donated to them by the way so everything is 100% profit My stepson worked for them! He made $7 an hour and they would only let him work four hours a day so they do not pay their employees well! So how is it legal for them to force me to pay for this? I don't want my account banned but I don't wanna pay for something that I cannot use because of missing parts which I cannot order! I just don't want anyone else going through this! I hope my review will help Sincerely, Brian S Knoxville TN also I'm posting a picture of both as you can see wrong remote!

I won a lot of coins which weighed 3.22 pounds. When I got my package it weighed less then a pound. The shipping label states actual weight and I understand there process of dimmed which is whatever is greater that is what shipping cost. I bought them for my grandson who was excited about some of the coins in the photos but they were not in the box I recieved. I am recently widowed and 86 years old and feeled like a old lady that got scammed. So much for "good will" I emailed them to explain my situation. They want me to take phots and photograph the box of coins on a scale showing the weight! Here is a idea look at the shipping label and packing slip which clearly shows this info. The guy who name is on my paper work is Matt Peterson who is the director of ecommerce store. They returned my email saying there was no issue. I dont think Matt is going to say, oh yeah I took your coins. My grandson and my late husband enjoyed coins and im trying to fill that void and grieving at the same time. Shame on you! I read that veterans affair manget stole over $300,000 from grants that should have gone to veterans programs, how pathic. He got jail time. The employees are not allow to bid or buy items they dont have too they can just take what they want and some old lady like me paid $108 for MATT PETTERSON TO STEAL CHANGE, COINS FROM A SENIOR ON FIXED INCOME AND A 9 YEAR OLD. Im a christian but go to HELL. Another slap in the face they dismiss with a email that does resolve my issue just gasoline on a FIRE. Im so MAD!

... and ftloG, set up a photo booth so your "couldn't care less," employees can't take such worthless pics

This site looks like such a find - all the great stuff you unearth at goodwill, online in one place. But you're buying from a site that expects your purchase to pay for the entire transaction: posting, tracking, packaging, and postage. That food chain doesn't care about you or your item.

So what you receive, depending on the goodwill location from which you purchase, may be: damaged beyond repair, have permanent stickers or tape on the collectible item, someone's hair or fingernails with your shipment, be completely unsanitary (they don't wash or clean clothes prior to shipment) - none of which shows up in the item photos - or be an absolute gem. I've experienced all these.

Keep in mind that the charity received these items for free, and they're now recouping all their costs through you. Postage is shockingly high, media is never shipped media rate - and if you go for one cent shipping, an item that was originally listed at $9.00 is now listed at $30.00, so don't imagine you're getting the best deal. There's a base price for each listing, often a minimum sell price, plus handling, plus postage.

And customer satisfaction? In five years of extensive use, I've **never** received a response to a pre-sale question about an item. Many locations are awesome about after-sale issues - but the same number of locations won't even respond. I've been injured by broken glass in packaging (not related to the item packed) but never received a response, had an item fall out of the box upon receipt (that ticket was open for two years, but closed when the site migrated), had to remind locations to ship after three weeks of sitting on my money, and never received a promised refund for an item.

With the new site, fewer locations participate, and more are careless about customer care, packaging and sanitation.

Recently, out of five experiences, I've had four dreadful, one good. That one good was a standard transaction - the four dreadful? Items ruined by poor packaging.

With Shopgoodwill, you find items that are nowhere else - and might be a great deal - but you didn't get to see them personally. And there's no interest in customer satisfaction or escalation. All those who have had a few good experiences, or think this is the best site ever, just wait - your time will come, and you'll hit the wall. Unless you have money to burn, don't care about the item and just want to scope it out, or frustration doesn't bother you - DO NOT SHOP HERE. I'm done with them.

Most ShopGoodWill sellers are hard-nosed greedy jackasses who now charge what the shipping cost SHOULD BE in their handling fees, not including the excessive shipping and lack of shipping options! They don't give a d**m about buyers -use the most costly shipping methods, usually UPS or FedEx, and rarely USPS which is most reasonable & most reliable!

On top of that, their shipping/handling is not equitable for all items. For example; they charge the same $3-4 or more HANDLING FEE for a tiny pendant (that weighs less than an ounce & could ship USPS First-Class for the cost of a postage stamp) plus $8-10 shipping- and charge the SAME HANDLING FEE for a set of dishes that have to be hand-packed and wrapped individually in a large box with tons of packing and bubble wrap! They will combine the shipping cost for multiple tiny jewelry items... but still get MORE than what the actual cost to ship would be by still making you pay the handling fees for each of the multiple items!

One other thing that is unscrupulous is that since they have no one policing their auctions, many use shills to bid your item up if you bid the full amount way before the auction ends; and on hot items-they just bid you up and up, if they see there's a higher demand for the item. This should not be so... but I know because I've tested this many times. If an item is listed at say $9.99 and I bid $89.00 early, in a day or so they will bid the item up to $87.50 or whatever is the next minimum bid as mine without going over. Goodwill can see what the high bid is at any time- so don't place a high bid up front! This crooked baloney, is like so much that's going on in the world now when you deal with people and businesses who have no moral compass!

They charge way to much for shipping and then make more money by charging you extra for handling! The stuff is donated to them and i have decided i will not buy from sellers who charge a high handling charge and high shipping charges anymore! They are getting rich off people and it would be better to buy from ebay then this site! Because ebay a lot of times have Free Shipping and NEVER have a HANDLING Charge! The new site is a mess as well not worth trash! I hope a lot of people will follow suit and STOP BUYING FROM THESE STORES THAT CHARGE TOO MUCH TO SHIP AND CHARGE TOO MUCH FOR HANDING! Plus no refunds or returns wow! They are getting rich off people with donated items! I only will bid now if shipping is low and handling is low thats it for me! I will buy mostly from ebay because you can trust them and they stand by you if you need a refund or return and they have sellers with good feedback which goodwill you can't even leave feedback for a store which is wrong as well. If they are going to run an auction they should at least let you leave feedback for who ever you buy from too. Also be careful when you bid or buy Gold Jewelry! Because i bought a necklace that was tested by their store and when i got it, it was written on the chain GF which is gold filled not real gold! So they take time to test jewelry but not to read what is stamped on it? If they tested it why was it fake? You can not trust that you are bidding on real gold so be careful when buying jewelry from them if you thinks its real gold and may not be real. Also it is used jewelry so it can have faults or need repairs because they don't really look at it good enough! My bracelet was over 100.00 and it was scrap! My jeweler told me it would cost thousands of dollars to repair the bracelet! No kidding be careful!

Third and last time for ELECTRONICS from "GOOD" WILL.
I would advise everyone out there to NOT buy electronic items from GOODWILL.
The first experience for an "all-in-one" vintage radio\ record player/receiver which arrived totally busted.
In that case the store in question gave a refund and I junked the broken item.
The second time was a STEREO AMP which was touted as "working"--it was not working and I doubt it ever was--I got NO RESPONSE & NO REFUND in that transaction.
The third and last time was this MARCH, 2021.
Won a bid for a "working" turntable and FEDEX left it on the porch in a box which was obviously damaged.
GOODWILL of CENTRAL TEXAS made no attempts at refunding.
I did eventually open the box to ascertain the damage and sure enough-- both corners of the plastic cover were broken right through since the cover was NOT individually wrapped.
There were no "FRAGILE" stickers or "THIS END UP" The turntable was in the box upside down.
There was no SIGNATURE DELIVERY and I would have refused the box just by looking at it.
I didn't bother "testing" it since I doubt it would work due to crappy packaging.
They sent "NO REPLY" emails asking for more pics!
They then "closed" the case without even addressing the issue.
I turned the whole matter over to Wells Fargo and learned my lesson, which is--DO NOT BUY ELECTRONICS from GOODWILL--they don't know how to pack items properly--AND it's doubtful they ever even test anything.
And, like others have suggested, there seems to be shill bidding going on in many stores.
I have had fairly good luck with non-electronic things but I am stopping all purchases from them.
And--why are donated used items TAXED AGAIN?
THE USED STUFF has already been taxed to death but still--MORE TAXES?
They pretend to be a "charity" organization, but in reality they are FOR PROFIT and have a CEO who takes home MILLION$$$$$ while paying employees sub-par wages.
Rich people donate for TAX WRITE-OFFS and couldn't care less what happens after that.

Shopgoodwill.com internet auction site has many Goodwill stores participating on the internet auction around the country. There does not seem to be any consistency from one location to another in how they do business. Each site is left up to their own judgement as to the method of testing or not testing electronic items, describing, picturing, packing, shipping carriers, etc. For example an audio video receiver: one facility may not even plug a receiver in to see if it may power up or not. Another facility may plug it in and if if powers up they are done and off to the internet auction it goes. Personally I have purchased four high end receivers(my price over $300/each plus shipping) from shopggoodwill.com and only one ever worked. My percentage is about 75% failure when it comes to purchasing electronic items on the internet auction site. It would seem there should be some minimal consistent testing procedure for high dollar electronic items sold on the shopgoodwill.com site. I am sure there are thousands of disgruntled customers around the country who have purchased electronic merchandise only to find out their purchase was merely a very expensive non-usable item worthy of the dump. I wonder how many folks take their recently received non-working item they purchased from shopgoodwill.com and take it to their neighborhood Goodwill store as a donation just to start the process over with the non-working electronic item.
No one is making out other than Goodwill for the above described scenario. The packaging and shipping procedures varies greatly. Some stores do in house packing others send the items out to UPS stores, FedEx, mom/pop shippers etc. The real problem lies in stores that chose to package their own items for shipping. Some stores do well and bubble wrap fragile items others simply throw the item in a box with no packing material at all. Some stores allow a third party to pick up an item for shipping such as a UPS store others will not allow anyone other than the buyer to pickup the item even if you are out of state from the Goodwill store from which you purchased the item from on the shopgoodwill.com site.
It seems shopgoodwill.com is not accountable to any governing body or law enforcement agency otherwise how does Goodwill get away with selling damaged or non-working electronic just because they state the items are not tested or sold as is. I suppose there are thousands of us gullible shoppers out there that keep Goodwill in business.

I've won about 15 auctions in my month of bidding. Of those, about 1/2 are worth my time and money. I have had china arrive broke, but on this auction I still felt what arrived safely was worth my bid and the shipping. However, I recently bid on bull horns, won and paid immediately. A few days later I was notified with an apology that they were sorry their store didn't have the supplies to ship my horns safely and would be glad to reimburse me for my bid and the shipping. The problem with this is they've sold horns prior and shipped them, they even had a bid one day later for horns that were 6 inches shorter than the horns I bid on except that the shipping for those were $32 and my shipping was $14. So, I was left wondering if they felt they needed more money either in my bid or in shipping for it to be worth them fulfilling their obligation to honor my bid plus the shipping I had already paid. Look for yourself under advanced auctions that have ended in the last 60 days for bull horns or Western Horns and you will see that they state they are ship-able. I sincerely felt ripped off while they called it an error on their part. FYI - this is the store in Southern and Western Colorado so beware. What else? I've watched items that I had planned to bid on which suddenly, a day before time to bid, the photos disappear and only the description is left. What else, you will definitely pay more for shipping and handling charges are most ridiculous. I've paid $14 for a small cow hide to arrive in an envelope, not in a box as expected, but a manila envelope. So, while I've won some auctions and like 1/2 of the items I've won, I've also felt ripped off as well. It is buyer beware, they are in it to obtain the highest price possible and in the end none of these auctions are for the needy. Don't pretend to be fooled, they are for those that can afford the gamble! Seriously, who are you kidding? Good will is a gesture we wish for those that need it but an auction as this is for those that have a nice place to lay their head, this includes me. The shipping prices alone are more than what many of these items are worth and someone said it well, do your homework before bidding, look at those additional costs of winning. Etsy and Ebay obtain prices near the same without all the headache one may experience when told an item they purchased and paid for can now NOT be shipped because they haven't the resource to pack it safely. Nobody likes to put their energy in to watching an item, researching it, bidding, and then winning only to hear those words uttered days later! It will make you skeptical and that is what brought me here to write a review and mention I'm just not convinced of their practice or service, it's more about the money with GoodWill.

Apart from possibly excessive postage and packaging, although I did receive the item overnight, and the concern about possible shill bidding driving up the price, I bought a vintage replica ring in perfect condition, it looks like new, and I am very happy with it. The remaining few new ones of this ring were being sold on ebay at the time for over 3 times the price I paid. I would be wary of buying anything else from this site for the reasons given by other people here, with which comments I mostly agree, but in this instance I'm very happy to have this ring.
I am revising this review because I have since bought a second item which I just received today, this time a necklace from Middle Tennessee, and although I have no complaints about the necklace itself, the postage charges were excessively high. They charged me $7 for sending a flat necklace in a small, barely padded envelope, and depending on whether it was considered a letter or a large envelope, it only cost them either 68 cents or $1.15 plus the cost of the flimsy little envelope that shouldn't have cost more than 50 cents if that. I think a couple of dollars of what I was charged was a handling fee. Like others have said, everything these people sell has been donated to them, and they are supposed to be helping people who are disadvantaged in some way. They certainly don't need a handling fee, nor do they have any good reason for charging so much more than the cost of the postage and the envelope. They can be a good source for discontinued, vintage items that are rare and hard to find, as long as there isn't much that could be wrong with them (like jewellery in my case) and that's the only thing I've been interested in buying from them, but with their dubious business practices that they seem to have been able to get away with due to being a charity, they are going to alienate more and more customers, I think, judging by the bad reviews here. Many more people probably have bad experiences than actually take the time and trouble to write reviews. At least this time, thanks to the reviews here, I knew better and didn't make anything but the smallest bid at a time so as to try to not invite shill bidding. I'm now starting to use shopgoodwill.com as a source of some available older items and then searching elsewhere for them on websites where the sellers are held more accountable for their actions.

I am embarrassed to say how much I've spent at this site. I will admit that some items were really great and I got a good deal. I shop for items that are rare, unique or very hard to find as well as items I can get a good deal on. Everything went well until I decided I needed a new flat screen tv and thought... hey... why not. So far I've always had a good experience. I saw a smart tv and the description was good. Stated it turned on, but didn't really elaborate on whether all the functions worked. So I thought... eh... what the heck I'll put in a bid. Once I put in a bid, I realized it had a reserve of 200.00. I contacted the store through the message system at the site and asked them if all the functions worked and expressed my concern that they had such a high reserve with very little information on whether it actually fully worked or not. I received a message stating that they were unable to test all the functions and that they would lower the reserve to 150.00. I ended up taking a chance and won the bid. The TV arrived, powered on, turned on netflix and guess what... ZERO sound! Now I can see not being able to test certain things like the smart tv functions but the SOUND!? Anyway... I was able to get around that by plugging in external speakers, but it's still horrible sound. That was my first disappointment with goodwill.

The second purchase I made that was a total disappointment was a brand new, in the original box air fryer. The pictures all showed it still in the wrapping, Styrofoam... etc. So I thought... how can I go wrong here... right? Well, I got the air fryer, plugged it in... and NOTHING! They can't check these kinds of things!? Come on!

The other thing I have recently noticed is that the shipping and handling fees are getting outrageous. When I first started on this site a couple years ago, it didn't seem that bad. I did noticed that the stores closer to my location were cheaper, but I noticed the other day an item that I could ship for less than 5.00 had a handling fee of 4.00 and over almost 30.00 shipping. That put the item well over NEW price from the store up the street. Why on earth would anyone bother? Not ALL stores charge ridiculous prices, but the ones who do are ruining it for the others.

I will admit I've gotten some great deals on things I couldn't have gotten anywhere else, but lately it's getting worse and not worth the bother. I no longer purchase anything electronic and if the shipping and handling is crazy... forget it. I find myself looking at the site less and less now. It's really a shame and turning into a scam!

Sometimes I get what is advertised... and it's ok. I try to purchase multiple items from the same location because some of them cap their handling fees at $10 and then shipping is combined... Sometimes these work out ok...

Issues...

They take crappy photos and deliberately hide damage on items they list as NWT... You can return items If they are not as stated BUT they don't refund the handling fees or the shipping or the sales tax... even though THEY made the mistake. So... they profit anyway even if you return the item.

They don't tell you that certain items can't be combined with others for shipping, even though SOME items are clearly marked "Can not be combined for shipping" in big red letters under the shipping tab... and you don't know that until you're done and try to pay... then that one $3.99 item costs $22. Because for completely unknown reasons you can't combine that one bikini bottom... if you ask, they take days to respond then say "Oh, that's weird. You better email customer service"... that takes 4 more days and they respond "Those can't be combined"... And if you don't pay for it then it's a black mark on your record. 3 of them and you can no longer shop there.

When they can't find an item you purchased... they give you a refund. For the cost of the item. They do not refund the handling fee, the shipping, or the sales tax. If you try to open a ticket... they ignore you. Pretty sure they can't legally just keep the sales tax they charged you on an item that they didn't have and you never received... but they do. How much trouble am I going to go to for $2... but it's one hell of a profitable scam for Goodwill when they profit from their own deception...

If you are having an issue with an item and are trying to work it out... they may simply not respond and your item then goes unpaid and, as I mentioned above, 3 unpaid items and you are banned from the site. They note that Covid has slowed things down (yes it has) so they may take longer to reply (which I totally get) but they haven't extended the time a buyer has to pay for an item... which means that if you want it... you have to pay the extra fees that they don't have listed and that you din't know about until after you've made the purchase and that you're trying to work out... or take the black "Unpaid item" mark...

The mold... "NWT"... that's all it says under "condition"... except the mold (you know that "it was in a flooded basement then tossed into a pile of debris for a month" mold) was heavy enough that simply opening the box... caused an asthma attack that lasted a month. Of course they have a disclaimer that all items are donated and they do their best... Maybe whoever listed that item (2 of them actually) had Covid and had lost their sense of smell...

Be careful about which locations you purchase from. Some are more honest than others... however management can change and you can get royally screwed just when you think you're ok.

Best advice... just don't.

I have gone from the biggest fan of Goodwill, to dreaming of the day when people just STOP giving them, anything.

I can appreciate and even admire a company that is set up to help people that would otherwise struggle in the "normal" workplace. Here is what I don't admire. When you are flat out fraudulent and hide behind the "charity" guise, I am literally disgusted. If you've never had the displeasure of shopping GoodWill online, stay away from it in the future too. I've been an active member for about five years now. By active, that means I check their listings about 3x weekly. I've bought only one item since being a member simply due to their repulsive practices. Please keep in mind that EVERYTHING they sell was given to them free of charge. And not only was it free, it was delivered to their doorstep. It is then tested, if applicable, to the extent of plugging it in. They will tell you if it powered on or not, and that's the extent of their testing. Now if it's an item that they believe will bring a considerable amount of money if it was working, they somehow found a means to test it. This isn't the exception, it's the rule. Remember, I've been watching this happen for five years. Next is the shipping charges. I've had an account with UPS for about ten years now and I ship far less packages than Goodwill does. I know from experience what their minimum discount is. Yet they charge fees that are beyond even what the UPS website would charge you. But we're not done yet. They are going to charge you a "handling fee" too because they had to carry the item from the drop box to the table to photo it. Doesn't matter if you pick it up at the store either. You are paying the handling fee. Some of these are as much as $8 for a single item. Some are 5% of the selling price which means a $500 item which means you will pay an additional $25 for someone to pack it with some more free stuff. Don't think so? Look up item# *******. What does the selling price have to do with anything when it comes to handling fees? And to think of all the buyers that participate in this corruption all because "it's for charity". If ANY retailer conducted business in this fashion, I can about guarantee you wouldn't shop there. There is so much corruption in charity, you'd swear they are run by government and religious affiliations. What is probably the most disgusting is that people continue to buy from them. There can't be a murder without a murderer.