chris s.

Always looking for something special, and this puts me on Goodwill's auction site. Lots of cool, unusual things I just can not find living in rural Virginia. BUT - BEFORE YOU BID ON GOODWILL"S AUCTION site be warned!
You can not trust Goodwill's staff to photograph even the most obvious, and clearly visible areas of damage to an item they list. I feel they simply do not care, nor do I beleive they train their staff as to what to look for when they handle and photograph an item. Goodwill will tell you they are not experts! But then - who needs to be an expert when damage is so easily visible by the poor winning bidder that merely holds the item in hand and can see what Goodwill's untrained staff decided not to photograph or disclose. Then, there is the mishandling of your precious item after you won the auction, simply to receive your purchase with damage caused by their staff carelessly handling your purchase.

Case in point. I bid on a painting and frame for our dining room. It arrived safe and was well packaged. However, there were several areas of the frame that had plaster chips that I easily saw once the frame was unwrapped. One of these plaster chips to the frame was not there when the painting was posted for auction, meaning that after the photos were taken, the frame was mishandled to cause a rather obvious front plaster chip to the frame. I also found 4 price stickers on the back of the frame. The stickers read $4.99. So, I paid big bucks for a mishandled damaged frame that Goodwill initially placed in one of their stores to sell for $4.99. This is a true and documented incident.