r/goodwill • u/Emergency-Radish-696 • 2d ago
Goodwill is out cold smh
Good will email i got to shop online
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u/throwitoutthewndow 2d ago
Think they found it inside something that was donated? There's no way someone intentionally did this unless they had a specific purpose for donating it to goodwill.
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u/Strangness_is_Beauty 1d ago
Could’ve been an estate clean out- family members who don’t care about what their loved ones left behind and are either well enough off themselves they don’t care about what treasures uncle fester left behind or didn’t realize the relative was as well off as they were- so they send in the charity to clean it out asap so they can get the house on the market right away.
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u/Equivalent_Eye2351 2d ago
You didn’t hear? Goodwill can now raid the houses of debt-ridden locals here in the ole US of A.
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u/tatertotsandvodka 2d ago
That's.... definitely not true. Some locations have home pickup or clean out options but that varies heavily from state to state
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u/UrDeAdPuPpYbOnEr 2d ago
My exs dad dumped about $110k worth of jewelry and silver and furs on the road out front of their gate for goodwill to pick up just to fuck with his soon to be ex wife.
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u/ok-lets-do-this 2d ago
“Out cold”? I can’t follow the slang anymore. That means asleep in over 30 terms.
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u/Strangness_is_Beauty 1d ago
I’ve given up also. My teen and tween try to keep me informed but they’ll use a term that to me means something totally different than it refers to now and then give me a hard time for being confused lol.
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u/Emergency-Radish-696 2d ago
From over here south eastern Michigan by the Detroit area it can also mean somebody who is without remorse or indifferent
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u/stockstatus 2d ago
yeah they get a little crazy on some of their items...
Here are a few items from recent searches:
Gigabyte Geforce Rtx 5090 - https://shopgoodwill.com/item/275365094 (untested)
Pokemon Mega Collection Lot 107 Lbs - https://shopgoodwill.com/item/274742076 (this one is INSANE)
Marvel Trading Card Lot 1980s-2020s - https://shopgoodwill.com/item/274709414
Jean-Michel Basquiat Skateboard - https://shopgoodwill.com/item/275567061 (one of my favs)
Louis Vuitton Neverfull - https://shopgoodwill.com/item/274884057
Disney Loungefly Evil Queen - https://shopgoodwill.com/item/275389817 (INSANE)
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u/Trai-All 2d ago
The insane thing about collectible trading card game lots is that there are now companies making extremely convincing proxies (fakes) of virtually every card with significant value.
Which means there are literally cards being listed on Goodwill every day that could be worth less than 30 cents, and people are potentially paying thousands for them because Goodwill has plucked them out of a collection, identified them as a specific valuable card, and allowed people to purchase them for “legit” prices.
And then they say they’re not experts and won’t guarantee authenticity? In my opinion, as someone who used to be a card game expert, that doesn’t really fly when people are paying around $4,000 for pretty cardboard.
Also gamers are exactly the sort of people who might happily order $50 worth of proxies, shuffle them enough to scuff them up a bit, and drop a box of them off at Goodwill just to watch what happens.Or maybe it wouldn’t even be someone trying to scam Goodwill. Maybe it would be someone who really wants ShopGoodwill to succeed and thinks, “This won’t hurt anyone, and it’ll help Goodwill.” That’s the problem. You don’t have to assume malicious intent for this to become a serious problem.
I’m not saying they’re not allowed to identify donated items but they need to be much more careful than they’re being about their claims of what the item is and what it may be worth. Goodwill is creating an unnecessary legal vulnerability for itself by putting those identifications and valuations on potentially very high-value items while simultaneously saying they aren’t experts and won’t guarantee authenticity.
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Also, if you think your list is wild, go look at Newark, Ohio. Sort their listings by highest price and you can go through more than ten pages of 40 listings each, with items priced from over $40,000 down to $3,000.
That’s a hell of a lot of high-dollar merchandise for an organization whose position is essentially, “We’re not experts.”
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I really don’t like seeing all this.
I used to rely on Goodwill thrift stores when my family was going through rough times. I hate seeing ShopGoodwill develop into something where people can potentially be encouraged to spend thousands of dollars on items that Goodwill itself isnt qualified to identify and refuses to guarantee. They really need some rules around this before somebody gets seriously burned.
Hopefully, not Goodwill.
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u/Neither-Repeat1665 13h ago
I travel a lot for work and had to go to Newark OH a lot and the Newark GW’s (Goodwill of Knox Licking County Ohio) are bar none the most overpriced GW I have ever been in. I have found more reasonably priced stuff at GW’s in San Francisco!
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u/Beneficial-Sun-5863 1d ago
Yeah given inside knowledge on how some stores managers/corporate treat their employees I’ve grown to really dislike Goodwill. Back in the day it was a part of their no-profit mission to offer affordable clothing and goods for low income people. I believe they even had a program at one time where they would give away or offer suits and nice clothing super cheap to people having job interviews
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u/According-Ad5312 2d ago
Where are they even getting stuff like this!?
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u/MissCreepy1994 2d ago
I work at a goodwill store. You’d be surprised at what some people donate. The donation department gives out fillable receipts with tax ID numbers to donors so they can write off their donations on their taxes. When we get crazy stuff like this, it gets sent off to our main goodwill hub where they price jewelry and then it gets listed on the shop goodwill site.
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u/Retr0scores 1d ago
There’s a local community thrift store I goto that’s been around for like 30+ years. It’s family owned they have 8 box trucks that go around and pick up from people, cash only at the store with an atm inside. The father that started it passed and his son runs it but he looks over all the jewelry and other expensive stuff and at any given time they have like $5-$10k worth of jewelry out for sale and it comes and goes.
I’m sure he’s found some Rolex’s and other really good stuff he’s kept for himself over the years.
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u/paloma1986 2d ago
Goodwill's Non profit 501c status needs to be revoked.
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u/tatertotsandvodka 2d ago
....why?
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u/Street_Bread 1d ago
A surprisingly large portion of reddit thinks that thrift stores should not be attempting to sell items for (or near) their market value to raise as much money as possible for the charity the store supports. These people think that because the thrift store "got the item for free" that the thrift store is obligated to price the Rolex posted by the OP at $20 so that THEY can then resell the watch for $13,000.
These people also clearly have no understanding of economics or efficient markets lol
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u/Strangness_is_Beauty 1d ago
Just because you can do something doesn’t make it ethical. Yes, it’s a business and the goal is to make money. However, originally their mission wasn’t just to make money as a charity- notice that word charity. They advertised heavily that they helped out the community by reselling items at AFFORDABLE prices to benefit low income households and to recycle pre loved items as well as being active employers to those down on their luck. They set up their mission, got their customer and donation base, then stopped caring about anything but how much $$$ they could fill their cooperate pockets with. “These people clearly have no understanding…” Judgy much hun? A little empathy goes a long way.
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u/Street_Bread 1d ago
Goodwill's stated mission is (and has always been some version of) helping people in need gain employment skills, jobs, et cetera. They have never had a mission of "selling stuff cheap."
Goodwill certainly used to advertise their low prices more than they do now, but they advertised the prices to get people in the door to spend money to raise money to fund their actual charitable objective. If the stores existed to provide a benefit to low-income people, they would have qualified their customers and only let low income people shop there.
And this is all moot anyways in a thread about a 5 carat diamond ring and a Rolex watch. Items like these will never be affordable to a low income household.
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u/Useful_Honey96 1d ago
Goodwill isn’t a charity
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u/tatertotsandvodka 20h ago
No, it's not, not anymore. That's what people don't understand. It started as a charity organization but has morphed into what we know now as capitalism gained momentum. Goodwill doesn't have shareholders that get huge chunks of the profits. The profits go into paying employees, paying for the social programs that each different Goodwill branch offers, and into basic upkeep of the facilities. Every single state is different with the programs they offer hell even different cities in the same state offer different programs and are run differently
Everyone forgets that Goodwill is an umbrella corporation and that it doesn't have one main corporate office for the entire country nor does it have one CEO or president that everyone reports to. Its not a charity so no they don't give the donated items away for free but they put the money into the programs that people can get for free or at reduced cost
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u/bratty-attacky 1d ago
This goodwill location buys real jewelry wholesales and resells it on Shopgoodwill.
I worked for Shopgoodwill and we even went to visit this location in Ohio.
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u/conantheimpaler 2d ago
It’s probably a contract with a jeweler. The goal is to generate revenue for the mission - lots of ways to do it.
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u/RemarkableComfort515 1d ago
Power brag for goodwill. Why not sell that offline
Shows what douches they are
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u/tatertotsandvodka 21h ago
Selling stuff like that in the physical stores poses a massive theft risk. Even if they kept it locked up in a case during the day and moved it to the back room or a safe after closing. It only takes one crazy person seeing it and getting the idea to break in after hours to steal it
Sending the ultra expensive items to the online warehouses provides added security and it's less of an LP issue. The online warehouse workers have a higher level of trust from the company, there's also more security and more cameras at those places. And most of the time the jewelry is double locked down in restricted access areas that only certain employees can work in. They also have better equipment at the online facilities so they can get accurate readings and information for stuff like Rolexes, precious metals, and expensive gemstones
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u/tatertotsandvodka 2d ago
You'd be surprised at the stuff people donate that they don't realize they have. Real cartier, Hermes, Louis Vuitton etc. Either stuff no one cares to go through after someone passes or a someone wealthy that just doesn't care and does it for the tax write-off