What part of Shopgoodwill.com do you feel is a scam? I've purchased quite a bit of stuff from there over the years, and have always received what I paid for. I even bought a huge lot of Polaroid cameras there before and all of them were packed far better than what I've received from Ebay sellers. 

Be sure to check the shipping prices before you bid, as they can sometimes be absolutely ridiculous. This is partly due to the added "handling" fee that some of the stores add to the item. Just like with Ebay, check out the shipping/handling costs in advance, and ask all questions before the auction is over, and you should be fairly happy. Just know that a lot of what they sell is stuff that a donor didn't feel had any value, so there may be a reason it was donated to Goodwill (broken, defective, etc.). 

As I said, I've always had good luck, but I generally have realistic expectations (aka "low expectations") for anything I buy there, and I make sure to ask questions and check the shipping costs before bidding.

There are a lot of bad reviews out there.  It's been while since I looked, but I seem to recall people were complaining of shill bids being common.  It seems a lot of those reviews were a couple of years old, I really can't remember, but maybe they've cleaned up their act since then? I've never heard a complaint about them here on TT, but we also don't hear of people buying from them that often (at least in my limited time here).

Hmmm, shill bidding is incredibly common, whether it's on Shopgoodwill or Ebay. I always set a limit when I bid on something, and then just forget about the auction till I receive an e-mail notifying me if I won. I don't get caught up in the auction frenzy (at least not online... it's much harder to do in the heat of the moment at a real auction!). I'm also pretty frugal with my bids, so I don't win many online auctions anyway. LOL. I win maybe 5-10% of the auctions I bid on. The worst cases of shill bidding, at least that I have seen, have been on Ebay. It's pretty easy to tell, as you'll see an item being sold with 34 bids, only 3-4 bidders, and with 32 of those bids from one person. I then just skip over that auction and avoid the shill bidding drama.

Everything I have bought from Shopgoodwill has been a great deal. The Polaroid lot I mentioned earlier netted me some great cameras, and I even funded the entire purchase by selling off the ones I didn't want. Good stuff. 

If it's something you really want, you can help avoid the shill bidding by placing your bid in the last few seconds before the auction's end time. Anyone that places an early bid is just begging to get some shill bidding BS thrown their way. 

Last edited by Retro-Z (02-7-2015 00:26:31)

I've been buying bunches of typewriters from Goodwill since the '80's.

Hard to understand why it would be considered a scam. You certainly have to be careful because pictures don't always tell the tale, but that applies anywhere. I've gotten some nice ones that looked bad and some bad ones that looked good.

I mostly stopped going there because I'm not a collector (or so I tell myself) and 10-12 units is enough for me. But I discovered that a funny thing happens if I go there. I BUY TYPEWRITERS I DON"T NEED!!

I mostly just check the places that are close to me now and offer very cheap shipping, and I only do that every couple weeks.