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ShopGoodwill Off the Rails?!


sixersfan105

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Lately I've seen some downright bizarre auctions on ShopGoodwill, where the prices shoot WAY up beyond eBay value. Here's one good example, an in-progress auction for three pretty common Jaguar games and the official gamer's guide:

 

Checkered Flag CIB

Club Drive CIB

Theme Park CIB

Gamer's Guide

 

$216 and counting plus shipping with 36 hours to go...huh? Based on eBay sold listings, the value is around $100. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/70479842

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Couple possibilities beyond what's already been mentioned:

 

-You're a lot less likely to get a counterfeit game from Goodwill than from ebay.

-The amount paid above market value is considered a donation and thus is tax deductible.  If you pay $250 for a $100 item, the $150 overpay is deductible.

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10 minutes ago, krslam said:

Couple possibilities beyond what's already been mentioned:

 

-You're a lot less likely to get a counterfeit game from Goodwill than from ebay.

-The amount paid above market value is considered a donation and thus is tax deductible.  If you pay $250 for a $100 item, the $150 overpay is deductible.

True re counterfeit aspect. How does the tax deductible part work? Just on the honor system in terms of value and reporting on your annual return?

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The whole reason ShopGoodwill exists is to maximize the return for "collectable" items. Otherwise, they'd still be in the brick-n-mortar shops and video game thrifting would still be worth attempting. 

 

The link to the auction posted by @sixersfan105 is dead ... did the auction finish, or maybe there was something else wrong with it?

 

Any time I see sub-par Jaguar games going for $$$, I have to wonder if something funny is up. 

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13 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

True re counterfeit aspect. How does the tax deductible part work? Just on the honor system in terms of value and reporting on your annual return?

Yep, it's the honor system, same as when you drop off donated items and they give you a blank receipt to fill in any valuation you want.  How you'd prove it if you get audited is a mystery to me. 

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39 minutes ago, krslam said:

-The amount paid above market value is considered a donation and thus is tax deductible.  If you pay $250 for a $100 item, the $150 overpay is deductible.

Are you sure about this? https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Help/FaqDetail/Are-my-purchases-tax-deductible says (emphasis mine):

 

Quote

Unfortunately purchases made through Goodwill would not be tax deductible, only donations made to Goodwill would qualify as being tax deductible.

 

When you purchase an item through shopgoodwill.com you are paying fair market value for the item. If you make a monetary donation to a non-profit organization and you receive a service or product in return, the tax-deductible portion is the difference between the actual value of the item or service and the total contribution amount.

It seems like it's trying to have it both ways, doesn't it? Clear as mud. 

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Definitely Some "Running Up" The Bid Tactics By Other Entity's,I Have Dealt On and Off With The Shop Goodwill For A Few Years and I Will Be The First To Say There Is Something Fishy Behind Closed Doors About Their Auction Amounts,As Well On Three Occasions I Viewed Game Lots Being Bid Through The Roof and Low and Behold A Few Months Would Go By and I Would See These Same Lots Listed Again,Either The Buyer Did Not Pay (Unlikely) Or There Is A "Real Reason" To Be Re-Listing After Auction Closes To A Highest Bidder.The Site Has Become Very Discouraging.

Edited by orrko8791
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About 2+ years back shopgoodwill was a great place to get retro stuff cheap. I would be on there all the time. Things were going for great, reasonable and acceptable prices and I actually added quite a bit to my collection. I have since stepped completely away from that site. Prices are inflated (only assumption is inside job to jack prices up) and sometimes, if you do not check, shipping and handling has become ridiculous as well. Go elsewhere for your goods. They are no longer beneficial to collectors...

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9 minutes ago, NISMOPC said:

About 2+ years back shopgoodwill was a great place to get retro stuff cheap. I would be on there all the time. Things were going for great, reasonable and acceptable prices and I actually added quite a bit to my collection. I have since stepped completely away from that site. Prices are inflated (only assumption is inside job to jack prices up) and sometimes, if you do not check, shipping and handling has become ridiculous as well. Go elsewhere for your goods. They are no longer beneficial to collectors...

Yeah, I agree it was way better a few years ago, pre-website overall. I still shop on there on occasion and will get a deal once in a while, but I draw the line at eBay prices if I really want something - no reason to overbid. I have found shipping to be reasonable (and the calculator will give you the exact amount) but there is one Goodwill location in particular, which always seems to have "good stuff" but has ASTRONOMICAL shipping charges - Goodwill of Palmetto or something like that I believe. There are also a few that don't take PayPal, which I am always leery of, as the one time I got an SNES and had to pay through some other method (Verify.net), my card info got jacked. I do see where their other third-party payment system has since been changed to Stripe.

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33 minutes ago, orrko8791 said:

Definitely Some "Running Up" The Bid Tactics By Other Entity's,I Have Dealt On and Off With The Shop Goodwill For A Few Years and I Will Be The First To Say There Is Something Fishy Behind Closed Doors About Their Auction Amounts,As Well On Three Occasions I Viewed Game Lots Being Bid Through The Roof and Low and Behold A Few Months Would Go By and I Would See These Same Lots Listed Again,Either The Buyer Did Not Pay (Unlikely) Or There Is A "Real Reason" To Be Re-Listing After Auction Closes To A Highest Bidder.The Site Has Become Very Discouraging.

That's Because You Type Everything In Title Case For Some Strange Reason. Why Do You Do It?

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I just discovered the site a year ago, and thought it was pretty good then. I've been following a lot of stuff (as well as watching and buying) since then, and have noticed the steep increase of how high bids go. Before, I feel like you could pay less, or equal and maybe find a decent gem in the rough, but now you end up paying sometimes a lot more than just purchasing from a buyer.  Don't get me wrong, I've found things there, that are pretty unique and cool, but sometimes I don't understand why 20 SNES games (that go for $400 other places) sell for $500 ha. Terrible example... But I've seen a lot of it lately.

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11 hours ago, orrko8791 said:

Definitely Some "Running Up" The Bid Tactics By Other Entity's,I Have Dealt On and Off With The Shop Goodwill For A Few Years and I Will Be The First To Say There Is Something Fishy Behind Closed Doors About Their Auction Amounts,As Well On Three Occasions I Viewed Game Lots Being Bid Through The Roof and Low and Behold A Few Months Would Go By and I Would See These Same Lots Listed Again,Either The Buyer Did Not Pay (Unlikely) Or There Is A "Real Reason" To Be Re-Listing After Auction Closes To A Highest Bidder.The Site Has Become Very Discouraging.

I've had a few questionable S.G. dealings, in a few cases I was outbid, then mysteriously won the auctions. I suspect that there are no repercussions for a store bidding on their own auctions to raise the price to what my max bid is, then cancelling their own bids.

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The last thing I bought at shopgoodwill.com was a lot of old 5.25" floppy disks. For some reason a bunch of them had bad ascii porno art... well teens in the late 80's early 90's must have been really desperate to... uh. Not going to say. lol I wonder if they were original or just downloaded off of a BBS.

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9 hours ago, towmater said:

I've had a few questionable S.G. dealings, in a few cases I was outbid, then mysteriously won the auctions. I suspect that there are no repercussions for a store bidding on their own auctions to raise the price to what my max bid is, then cancelling their own bids.

That Is Definitely a Factor,As Sixersfan105 Mentioned Shipping Can Be Too High As Well

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32 minutes ago, boxpressed said:

Here is an auction for a boxed Jag that ended yesterday for $242. As with most items from Shopgoodwill, it's untested, so you take your chances. But it's not an unreasonable number.

 

https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/70577013

Yeah that's not bad. As I've said, not all of their auctions are crazy, and you can still get a good deal from time to time, and that's a good example right there. But the current three-game + gamer's guide auction just defies logic.

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I would be more likely to suspect resellers of jacking up auction prices to protect their investments (and then retracting bids or not paying) before I suspected Goodwill employees.

 

But it is true that the days of really good deals is over. On less popular stuff, you might get a 25% discount over eBay, but then you have to be willing to risk that the item isn't working. But for less popular stuff, there are still bargains to be found. And if you want three untested Wiis or a pair of Xbox 360s, you're in luck.

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