Melissa B.
This place has gone steadily downhill
This place has gone steadily downhill. I used to use it 10 years ago and it was great. Over the past 2 months I got back on and it's been one horrific experience after the next. Won a very delicate antique, paid dearly. The person who "handled" it in packaging either broke it beforehand (which is what I expect, in response to a polite message I'd sent requesting good packaging, so I think a Karen or Ken took offense because you know, customer service isn't "a thing" when you're untouchable and being paid no matter what you do) or intended for it to break in shipping: this was no accident or Fed Ex mishandling, with the item arriving flopping around in loose packaging and no fragile markings on the box, as I specifically requested, not that I should have to. Yes, you, Greater Milwaukee Chicago. Over the past 2 months I have used the shopGoodwill online platform daily, acquiring products for a project I'm wokring on, and have ordered and received items from 47 separate Goodwill locations, in some cases multiple items from the same location. Statistically I receive 1 out of 4 items broken for no reason other than the item is essentially thrown in the box with a lick and a promise. A Fed Ex driver with the finesse of a surgeon would not have been able to keep the item from breaking. Because these stores are autonomous, unchecked, unsupervised and Shopgoodwill "senior management" is, in my seasoned experience, a fake position using a copy-paste-response of "I'm so sorry you experienced this but..." I have rapidly and painfully learned which online locations I'll bid with again and which locations treat me like an "enemy" they should penalize with broken antique objects, as though my bidding/winning/payment was a personal attack. Some of these individuals don't know what the definition of the word "customer" or "service" means and think I am paying with Monopoly money, so when I find a location that actually does simply give me what I paid for, I like to let other people know (and leave 5 star reviews), and acknowledge their work, and on the flip side: Out of the 47 sellers I've used via the Shopgoodwill platform, I have a list of 13 with "WARNING: DON'T USE AGAIN" because they operate with the care/service of a drug cartel/money laundering scheme or minimally they simply don't care and/or the owner can't be a thug on the street but can hiding at the other end of a computer, and out of these 13, I have 5 who top the "We get off on items breaking in the mail" and "You owe us your money and we owe you nothing but heartache" list: ⛔️ Western Northern Connecticut Houston Greater Milwaukee & Chicago San Diego County Northern Michigan ⛔️ The only reason I've not included "Palmetto" is because in both cases they immediately refunded with the photos I sent. Now you know. Protect yourself. I will be posting this on as many sites as possible and have written to Fed Ex headquarters letting them know what is really going on because it's not them: it's these Goodwill locations and senior management who allow these locations to keep their licenses and literally steal our money. Here's to the Goodwill store owners and employees who care. 👍🏻