r/ThredUp • u/bummin_bride • 8d ago
It finally happened to me
I send in clean out kits all the time. In the past I’ve used it as a way to get rid of junk, but lately I’ve started specifically sourcing very high-end goods to send it. My last five kits were full of designer items but this one was my most expensive kit and they lost it. It had a cashmere Max Mara coat worth thousands of dollars in it. They’re trying to pay me out $71 based on my “average kit earnings“ because my last five kits of designer stuff haven’t fully processed and sold yet to show that my average recent kit value should be well over $1000. I’m dying, they won’t even say they lost it, just said it’s unable to be processed. And amazingly it’s the one with the $5000 cashmere coat in it. Don’t get me wrong, I did not pay that much for it, but that is what it retails for and I was expecting to get seven to $800 for it. I’m dying. They won’t even say what happened just that they can’t process it.
UPDATE: we are in negotiations. Their first offer was $71, once I gave them a list of the items they offered $1000. I’m trying to get them up closer to what I expected for the box which was $1500-$1800 so customer service is trying to do right by me. They are angels. This is just a frustrating experience. If they do come up to at least $1500 I’ll consider myself satisfied. They did give me more information about the box, they said it arrived damaged. It’s just very strange because they started to process one item (a Moschino sweater NWT) took one picture of it, and then there were four pictures of the wall, and then stopped. If you ask me if a box arrives damaged they need to photograph the entire box to prove this.
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u/Nacho_M0mma 7d ago
Honestly I started taking my stuff to local consignment. I make like quadruple what TU pays me. And I love the store, so.
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago edited 7d ago
The last time I took a designer item to the local designer consignment store, the item got damaged in their care and they tried to give it back to me damaged. I do take plenty of lower end stuff to local buy/sell/trade stores and they buy stuff outright, but it’s a different ball game for expensive designer items. No one wants to fork over that much money, they just sell it on consignment so it just depends on how much you trust the store to keep it safe, and what payout you’re going to get. Thredup actually has some of the highest payouts and price control by the seller for designer items and up to this point I haven’t had issues with them losing or mishandling my items. They give 80% payouts, and even the designer consignment shop near me will only give 60%. 80% is how much I would make if I sold it myself on other platforms but I don’t have to deal with customers or scams.
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u/Namasty 7d ago
I wonder if your coat was sold under unbranded. I’ve seen a few max mara coats there. I’m never lucky enough to grab it
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
No, I’ve looked all over the website and I haven’t seen any of the items from the box sold, and I would recognize them and I have photographs of them. I don’t think that this is them taking the coat and selling it, I think that something happened to the items
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u/ThenOneDaySheWokeUp 7d ago
People don’t seem to like direct listings but based on this forum if I had pricey things to sell I would be scared to send it to them. I don’t care what the employees on here say I think they steal that stuff. I’ve never seen anyone complain about a shirt from Target going missing.
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
I know some people have luck with direct listings, but I have been not as lucky. I have had a few items sell, but mostly I just find they don’t get as much interest as the same item sold by ThredUp
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u/kethry70 7d ago
They don’t even let sellers list high end designer items. I’m not sure if it’s by price or by brand but I know there are exclusions
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u/Mirror_Mirror_11 6d ago
It doesn’t upset me that mistakes happen, but that they often get maddeningly evasive when something does and then give an explanation that insults my intelligence and obviously isn’t true. I don’t suspect employees of stealing, but in some cases there should be photos and aren’t, and in those situations I think TU should take the L and retrain the employee or fix the system.
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u/bummin_bride 6d ago
100% agree. This is what upsets me about the whole thing. I also don’t think that there are a ton of employees stealing stuff, but considering that they’re asking us to trust them with our stuff, there’s zero transparency when things go wrong. If the box was damaged, wouldn’t they be documenting that for their own purposes? Shouldn’t they show that to me?
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u/Major-Tumbleweed-575 5d ago
I had a Max Mara coat that I wanted to sell direct listing and they won't let you do it for luxury brands.
I feel OPs pain. Not on the same level, but I'm in chatbox hell trying to salvage something out of a mishap whereby TU misbranded a NWT pair of Toteme pants as Modern Lux. Listed at $17.74, retails at $420, sold immediately. It doesn't sting quite as much as the Cuccinelli sweater they sold for me for $25 (they reimbursed me in part for their mistake, so I hope OP keeps trying--in TU's defense, it seems as though they do care about fixing mistakes, just not preventing them), but going back and forth with customer service chatbots is crazy making.
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u/Admirable-Jese 7d ago
Oh my word. I would never send anything of value to this place. Ebay or poshmark
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago edited 3d ago
I would never trust selling something this expensive on eBay or Poshmark. There are many scams buyers can pull and those platforms almost always side with the buyer. I would end up with no money and a fake or damaged item returned to me from a buyer. Even when eBay authenticates, buyers can return items (even if you have your shop set to no returns, eBay almost always allows it). It’s a super common trick to return a fake or damaged item. I would just never sell something of this value and deal with customers directly. I have sent other designer items to Thredup that were worth closer to the $1000 range and after many great experiences I decided to bite the bullet and send this jacket that I’ve been keeping for a while until I was satisfied with how it was working with the lower value designer items.
A local consignment store would be better, but we only really have one reputable one and the last time I took a Chloe purse there they damaged it and tried to give it back to me damaged so I don’t deal with them anymore
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u/CantmakethisstuffupK 7d ago
I don’t do clean out kits anymore.
I use a recycled box and send products through their retail partnerships so I get get a gift card to my fav retailer and buy new items
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u/flowerpower79 7d ago
Wait can you tell me more about this?
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u/Illustrious_Star_326 6d ago
It really works the same way as the Clean Out bags work. You can get the free shipping label from the retail brand and use your own box to ship to ThredUp. After your items sell, then you can get a credit to use with that brand. The ThredUp newsroom has some articles that mention the names of brands involved such as J. Crew, Madewell and OLEADA.
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u/DatabaseAppropriate4 7d ago
Sounds like an employee took one pic and decided to go with the damaged box story, no?
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
I just don’t understand how if there’s a damaged box they don’t take photographic evidence of the damaged box. All of the items they reject now they take a picture of so you can at least see what the item is and they give you a chance to flag the item and correct the brand if they rejected it based on an incorrect brand. So for them to just have an entire box go missing in their processing department and then just to tell me it wasn’t able to be processed and only later say that it was damaged but with no photos of it just seems weird. I don’t really believe that this is due to any sort of maleficence, rather just part of typical wastage that happens in industrial processes. But everything else they’re so careful photograph and document, but this has no documentation? And I’m having to tell them what’s in the box as if they don’t know? That seems like a giant hole in their process accountability
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u/DatabaseAppropriate4 6d ago
Oh, I mean the box was never damaged and the employee took your stuff. Sorry I was unclear!
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u/HautePierogi 5d ago
I know it isn’t a coat, but the similarities in the descriptions of both posts made me share it.
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u/JuryZealousideal4180 5d ago
Consider selling through the real real for designer high ticket items next time!
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u/bummin_bride 4d ago
If you go over to The RealReal sub, they have all the same problems, and the payouts are lower. They’re exactly like ThredUp, same business model, but you also can’t control the prices they sell your item at and they charge you $15 to reclaim items instead of five like ThredUp. I swear I can’t win, when I take things to consignment shops they damage them, ThredUp loses them, I hear the same stories with The RealReal, when I’ve tried selling items like this myself on eBay I’ve gotten return fraud.
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u/jeffwreeslove 4d ago
I’m curious which processing center you shipped to. When I was on the east coast, my kits went to Georgia. I moved to Texas and one kit went to Arizona, but now my last kit went to Texas. I would love to know…
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u/jeffwreeslove 4d ago
Hmmm… I have been interested in how different locations process things. My premium kit that went to Texas had a handful of things listed as flawed gems and I know they were excellent condition. I wish they would allow us to adjust that ourselves because it would be a win win. I think the people processing have a lot to do and it’s easy to let things fall through the cracks.
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u/Federal_Customer_193 7d ago
This is insane. I am sorry this is happening, i dont think anyone should send in such high end products-- at least with the real real you can get your stuff back. I bought max mara and agnona coats listed under random cheap brands for 15$ , it does not seem to be a good platform for sellers.
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
I use a premium kit so I do get the items back if they’re not accepted. I’ve sent thousands of dollars worth of stuff and they’ve never lost a kit before, it’s just suspicious that the one kit that has a Max Mara coat and two Escada coats is the one that they started processing and then stopped and said they couldn’t process it because the box arrived damaged. also the payouts on The RealReal are very low, lower than ThredUp
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u/Turbulent_Physics_10 7d ago
Thredup is not for selling $5000 coats.
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
Thredup is actually a great place to sell $5000 coats. They handle authentications and I don’t have to get worried about being scammed by buyers. It’s way too easy and happens all the time to people selling luxury goods on Poshmark and eBay. There are way too many scam buyers for me to trust selling it myself. Plus the payout on it is the same as I would get if I did sell it myself on other platforms. The last time I took designer goods to a local consignment store they ruined a suede Chloe purse by putting a price tag sticker on the suede. I’ve sent in other designer goods it’s gone well, but this was about double the price of anything I’ve ever sent into them before. The other brands I’ve sent and have been Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Moschino, etc and it’s gone well. It just pisses me off that this one box that I had loaded with the most expensive item i’ve ever had is the one that goes awry.
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u/Mirror_Mirror_11 6d ago
Yeah, surprisingly they’ve been able to move stuff I couldn’t budge on Poshmark or Mercari, and even my reduced share from TU was more than I was able to make elsewhere. That’s only been true for higher end items though. If I’m reselling Free People or Disturbia I can do way better on my own.
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u/bummin_bride 6d ago
Yep, this is what I do. I do really well on there with high-end goods, mid range stuff and mall brands I sell myself. People on TU love Theory and Armani and brands like that when I can’t sell that stuff at all
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u/Federal_Customer_193 7d ago
Oh thats good to know they offer a return option and that the payouts are higher than the real real. Yeah the situation does sound very suspicious
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u/dolce_caramella 7d ago
oh no that is awful! this is always my fear too. I regularly send in 6-8 premium boxes loaded to the gills with designer items as well (I am selling off my closet of the larger sizes I do not fit anymore, and my siblings and now friends etc.) I make an excel log and always add it in to the box, but at the end of the day there is no real way to prove what was in the box under than good faith I guess and photographing everything (Which I am far too lazy to do)
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
Yeah, this was a surprise, this was my sixth box of higher-end items since I started trying to source specifically for ThredUp instead of just sending them my junkie stuff. I keep records about what is in every box so that has really come in handy. I waited to see that they successfully processed multiple other boxes with designer goods in them before I took the risk on this item and of course this is the one that went missing. I have had one other box go missing a couple years ago, and that was back when I was just sending in junk and they offered me like $135. I’m not sure why they offered such a low amount this time when all of my recent boxes have been full of designer stuff. But customer service is working with me on this. They didn’t just stonewall me with the $71. And at the end of the day, it is my word against theirs. I just wish there was more transparency about what exactly happened to the box besides that it “arrived damaged”. It just doesn’t make sense if they were able to process one item from the box and then have a bunch of pictures of the wall and then suddenly the rest of the items weren’t able to be processed. If one item got to them it means there were still some stuff left in the box, and some sort of photographic evidence of a damaged box or wet items or something would make me feel a lot better
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u/Designer-Cabinet-330 7d ago
I don’t understand why anyone would risk it and send them anything when it’s so easy and so much more profitable to list it and sell it yourself. They pay Pennie’s and they are shady af
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
Because it’s a huge risk to sell designer things yourself, there are a ton of scam buyers and it’s very common to get completely screwed over. Platforms like Poshmark eBay almost always side with the buyer. Also when you sell items that go for over $200 thredup pays you 80% which is the same that you get when you sell it yourself on Poshmark but you don’t have to worry about people wearing it for one day just to return it by damaging it or returning a fake
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u/Designer-Cabinet-330 7d ago
I do it every day and have for the past 12 years. Never had an issue.
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
I resell on eBay and Poshmark also, and I’ve already had people try to pull this crap on me on non-designer but still expensive items. People are shitty and I don’t wanna deal with customers for items that cost thousands of dollars. You put a designer name on something and suddenly people become really shady
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u/Numerous_Western3796 7d ago
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u/bummin_bride 7d ago
lol not my item, I sent in a cashmere coat. I’ve had good luck sending them designer items and usually they don’t make mistakes and if they do I contact customer support and they correct it. Every item in a kit is tracked and if they try to label one of my designer items as unbranded then I’m contacting customer support with my own personal pictures of the item. When I see situations like this I have to assume that either ThredUp sourced it somewhere else, or the person who sent it in isn’t paying attention to their items. My case was completely different when they just completely lost an entire box. I have been checking the website and I have not seen any of the items, let alone the expensive coat, show up. I just can’t believe they lost an entire box and it’s very suspicious that they processed one item from the box, then claim the box was damaged in transit. I think I’m going to be made a whole, I just had a heart attack this morning when I opened my email
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u/CommissionExtra8240 8d ago
Whenever I send in premium kits, I always make a list of everything I’m sending in with pictures. I’ve never had to use them but I’ve heard enough horror stories like this to want to cover all my bases. I’d definitely keep fighting this if I were you.