# Screw You, Goodwill Industries of Southern California **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 8, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970 "2015-10-08T23:29:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/1 "2015-10-08T23:29:13Z")
We bought a chess set off Goodwill’s online presence. Whatever idiot packed the pieces just threw them all in the chessboard box and let them rattle around and around for a thousand miles, banging off one another the whole way. So now we have a chess set, that was perfectly fine before you morons shipped it, where every single piece is either broken in half or at least chipped. That’s $20 completely down the drain because you couldn’t be bothered to take five minutes to wrap the pieces properly. ---
**Author:** ![DoggyDunnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@DoggyDunnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoggyDunnit)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/2 "2015-10-08T23:44:31Z")
My “good will” (sorry) towards Goodwill pretty much evaporated a couple years ago after [this](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/27/goodwill-paying-penniesperhour.html) [news](http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal?lite) came out. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/3 "2015-10-09T00:49:25Z")
Anybody that doesn’t fully inspect anything that they buy at Goodwill deserves what they get. Goodwill online? You have got to be fucking kidding me that you did that. There is no reason to believe that the pieces weren’t broken and chipped _before_ it was shipped. Sheesh, what do you expect? Goodwill, Salvation Army, ARC, any thrift store: I’ve got to see it, hold it, inspect it, and then I’ll decide if it’s worth buying. You bought from a thrift store. Online. Heh, I guess it sucks that your brain cell hasn’t divided yet. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/4 "2015-10-09T02:19:58Z")
You spent $20 on a chess set from Goodwill? Was it originally, like, a $2000 chess set? ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/5 "2015-10-09T02:33:53Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > There is no reason to believe that the pieces weren’t broken and chipped _before_ it was shipped. Except that the [the website in question](http://www.shopgoodwill.com/) seems to offer pictures of pretty much everything. Presumably there were photos of the chess pieces intact prior to shipping. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/6 "2015-10-09T02:38:16Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Except that the [the website in question](http://www.shopgoodwill.com/) seems to offer pictures of pretty much everything. Presumably there were photos of the chess pieces intact prior to shipping. [Here](http://www.shopgoodwill.com/auctions/Plastic-and-Glass-Chess-Set-24693420.html) is the first picture I came across of a “plastic and glass chess set” with a broken piece clearly shown. (Image 6) ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/7 "2015-10-09T11:41:43Z")
> [@Squall Winds](#): > > My “good will” (sorry) towards Goodwill pretty much evaporated a couple years ago after [this](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/27/goodwill-paying-penniesperhour.html) [news](http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal?lite) came out. According to one commenter who worked there, the executives get first dibs on the good junk before it’s sold online. > [@](#): > > Would you like to know another one of Goodwill’s nasty little secrets? The really rare and unique stuff that gets donated is separated from the usual store junk and is then sent to a secure location. Then it’s photographed and sold to the highest bidder on Ebay after upper management bids on it. You read that right: upper management keeps the good stuff for themselves. Example: the store I worked at had a 1897 Gibson/Kalamazoo mandolin with original case donated. We knew what we had about ten seconds after it came through the donation door. Per SOP, the donor was asked if he knew what he was donating and if he still wanted to donate it. He told us he didn’t care, he just wanted to clean out his dad’s storage unit because his dad had passed away. It was worth at least $5000. We passed it on to the secure location and guess what? It never came up for sale on Ebay. (I know because I looked inside it and found the serial number: E1097) The store manager told me not to bother waiting for it to post on Ebay because an executive had already bid on it. How much? That’s between the executive and the board of directors. You like that story? There’s a million like it at Goodwill. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/8 "2015-10-09T11:51:42Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > [Here](http://www.shopgoodwill.com/auctions/Plastic-and-Glass-Chess-Set-24693420.html) is the first picture I came across of a “plastic and glass chess set” with a broken piece clearly shown. (Image 6) Is that the one the OP bought? Plus, that the set includes broken pieces is clearly listed in the description, so you don’t have t closely examine the photos. I’m going to give the OP a modicum of benefit of the doubt that his set was a different one, the photos showed no chips, and that the description didn’t clearly say pieces were broken. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/9 "2015-10-09T12:52:02Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > According to one commenter who worked there, the executives get first dibs on the good junk before it’s sold online. > > > [@](#): > > > > Would you like to know another one of Goodwill’s nasty little secrets? The really rare and unique stuff that gets donated is separated from the usual store junk and is then sent to a secure location. Then it’s photographed and sold to the highest bidder on Ebay after upper management bids on it. You read that right: upper management keeps the good stuff for themselves. Example: the store I worked at had a 1897 Gibson/Kalamazoo mandolin with original case donated. We knew what we had about ten seconds after it came through the donation door. Per SOP, the donor was asked if he knew what he was donating and if he still wanted to donate it. He told us he didn’t care, he just wanted to clean out his dad’s storage unit because his dad had passed away. It was worth at least $5000. We passed it on to the secure location and guess what? It never came up for sale on Ebay. (I know because I looked inside it and found the serial number: E1097) The store manager told me not to bother waiting for it to post on Ebay because an executive had already bid on it. How much? That’s between the executive and the board of directors. You like that story? There’s a million like it at Goodwill. That doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s like that almost everywhere. It’s human nature. I’ve seen it firsthand, and it disgusted me. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/10 "2015-10-10T03:16:05Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > According to one commenter who worked there, the executives get first dibs on the good junk before it’s sold online. This practice is not unique to Goodwill; other nonprofit organizations that sell to the public behave similarly. A few years ago I went to a botanical garden’s perennial sale and was surprised to find that few if any of the unusual/good items that were in the pre-sale listing were available. I was told that botanical garden members had dibs on the best stuff and got to take part in the sale before the unwashed public. So I bought a membership. I went to the next sale, was practically the first in the door and lo and behold, most of the best stuff was already gone. This time I found out that the executive committee of the botanical garden had exclusive access to sale items before anyone else. At that point, I gave up. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screw-you-goodwill-industries-of-southern-california/733970/11 "2015-10-10T08:14:28Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Is that the one the OP bought? Plus, that the set includes broken pieces is clearly listed in the description, so you don’t have t closely examine the photos. I’m going to give the OP a modicum of benefit of the doubt that his set was a different one, the photos showed no chips, and that the description didn’t clearly say pieces were broken. Not to mention, if he opened the case and the pieces were in there loose, then however damaged they might have been when they left Goodwill, they were certainly _more_ damaged when he received them.