A California woman seemed utterly baffled when she tried to buy a bag at Goodwill, only to get swiftly denied by a lead manager at the location. The bag, which was a high-end product, got taken away for Goodwill’s “auction site” despite being available in-store. This left many users stumped as to why the location didn’t own up to the mistake and let her walk away with the item.
@lawndalegnomeking’s video generated over 1.3 million views, as many avid bargain hunters tuned in for “thrift grift.” As a Goodwill employee working at the location explained, “ You’re more than welcome to go to our Shop Goodwill website and check it out. It’s still there for you.”
The employee had previously told @lawndalegnomeking that a trainee had mistakenly put the more expensive handbag out for sale. They implied that the store had to list the bag on its website once they realized what it was, clearly aggravating the thrifter who lost out on a deal.
“Former goodwill manager [here],” one TikToker said. “It’s just so they can get more money out of it online. Blaming a trainee is a cop out.”
Why does Goodwill have an online auction site?
Shopgoodwill.com, Goodwill’s e-commerce site, launched in 1999, is an online bidding website similar to eBay, Mercari, and other websites. Hundreds of Goodwill stores feed their best products to shopgoodwill.com, which customers can bid on and get shipped out to them.
Many people find the shipping and handling times for shopgoodwill.com to be incredibly long and arduous, leading them away from the platform. On Reddit, users cite the website as the reason consumers “don’t find good [items in-store] anymore.”
“This is why you rarely find great items at Goodwill anymore, especially handbags,” Reddit user u/hamandjam wrote on r/flipping. “They sell the genuine ones online, so anything valuable usually ends up there. Your only hope is that they miss something. The shipping and handling fees are steep, but if you find a local listing, you can save by picking it up in person.”
Is Goodwill a corrupt non-profit?
Goodwill has been around since 1902 and has since grown to be a $5 billion nonprofit organization. Originally set out on a mission to provide social welfare and employment to millions of people, it benefited 2.4 million people in 2024, according to its annual impact report.
While the organization’s philosophy of giving a “a hand up, not a hand out” seems good-natured, Goodwill has come under fire due to apparent money-hungry tactics, upselling, and poor treatment of its staff. Many people cite a series of controversies and incidents as reasons why Goodwill shouldn’t be your trusted “donation station,” while others credit the millions of articles of clothing that become textile waste.
Goodwill incidents
Goodwill has had a variety of incidents that have made headlines, leading some customers to opt out of donating or buying there.
News reports dating back to 2013 report that Goodwill paid its disabled workers “pennies” per hour, according to NBC News. The nonprofit used a 75-year-old federal law to pay workers as little as 22 cents an hour because the payment was based on employee “ability” with zero bottom limit to its minimum wage.
Another report led to a $100,000 fine for one store: A California-based worker was brutally killed in a trash compactor accident in 2017, leading to severe penalties from CAL-OSHA. The company apparently “[failed] to train workers at its Franklin Boulevard outlet store in the use of dangerous equipment,” leading to the worker’s untimely death at the age of 26.
@lawndalegnomeking Okay it’s time to finally post this… I’ve seen too much thrift grift lately. I brought a bag to checkout at a Goodwill in the South Bay and the VERY NICE (he was very very kind – the woman in the video was not) checkout guy had to bring it to the back to check on the price because it was missing the tag – and they kept it. I waited about 10 minutes for him to come back, and had to go pick up my daughter from school across the street – so I told another worker I would be right back. When i came back they wouldn’t let me purchase it because it was too high quality of an item, and those get sent to the website to get auctioned off. I told the manager – who is in the video – that I donate things over $500 all the time so that people in the community could get use out of it and she very condescendingly told me “good for you” and repeated that those items go to shopgiodwi lol.com, not the store. What is the point of donating to goodwill if the items don’t go back to the community?! It was a brahmin handbag that was auctioned off on their site for $27. I will NEVER donate or spend another penny at Goodwill ever again. There is about 25 more seconds of this video, but I don’t want to doxx the worker or the store – even though as I left this woman mocked me for taking a video in front of my daughter. I’ve never taken a video like this, but I asked her permission to video it. I wish I would have kept filming so I had her mocking me and being sassy AF on camera too. I was shaking with rage not because of the purchase, but because of how she treated me. #griftwill #goodwillhaul #goodwill #thriftgrift ♬ original sound – Lawndale Gnome King
Price gouging
Goodwill has increased prices to such a degree that some consumers can no longer buy clothing or other wares there. Articles dating back to 2023 claim that some locations are becoming pricier than “Walmart or Target.” That may be because of employees, but customers have noticed clothing items skyrocketing, leading to a surge of consumers coming in on “discount days.”
“Goodwill is absolutely the most corrupt ‘charity’ that ever existed,” one commenter added on @lawndalegnomeking’s post.
The Mary Sue has reached out to Goodwill’s press team to learn more about this incident. We’ve also reached out to @lawndalegnomeking for more information.
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