Big Thumbs Down to thredUP Online Consignment Site

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Pretty packaging but that ended up being the only thing I liked about this disappointing company.

thredUP…an online clothing consignment site with a big colorful logo.  Had me intrigued, so I signed up, filled a big thredUP bag with a bunch of my gently used clothing and sent it in.  How did it go?

Not well.

Huge disappointment with lots of issues.  I test companies, services, hotels and more for my blog readers so I can provide feedback and hopefully my recommendation.  I can tell you that this review isn’t a good one, so don’t sign up with thredUP.  Unfortunately, I give a big thumbs down to thredUP online consignment site. Here is why…

Step 1:  After I registered on the thredUP website, I was mailed a nice large bag to place my gently used clothes in.

I found this experience to be stress-producing, not reducing 🙁  The cool, trendy & good quality denim shorts pictured under the thredUP bag earned me zero dollars.  

I loved the bag, but sadly this is the only good thing I can say about this company.

This is a big bag and I filled it full expecting a fair payout.

Step 2:  I stuffed the huge bag, provided by thredUP, full of some of my really nice gently used women’s clothing.  Several J Lo dresses from Kohl’s that had only been worn twice, one expensive pair of FRAME shorts, a pair of nice quality white denim button fly shorts by Levi’s and more.  Tons of stuff.

Step 3:  I mailed my huge stuffed bag in on May 16th.

Step 4:  Nothing.  No word from thredUP.  Nothing.

They only responded after I complained via email (no phone number is provided to call and no one answered my live chat attempt even though it was during their business hours).

On May 31st I emailed the company asking for a status.  The response frustrated me.  From thredUP…

“Thanks for reaching out to thredUP Support!

Your message is important to us, and we look forward to helping you. We’re currently experiencing longer than usual wait times, with responses taking several days. To avoid unnecessary delays, we ask that you not send duplicate messages. Our advisors are hard at work to answer all of our customers, and we promise we’ll take care of you 🙂

Many questions can also be answered by visiting out FAQs here: https://www.thredup.com/support.
We thank you for your patience, and for being a thredUP customer!

-The thredUP Customer Service Team”

So, I waited another day.

On June 1st, I received a second reply email telling me that thredUP received my clothing to be considered with estimated processing to take place on June 20th.

OK, so I wait some more.  20 more days to be exact.

June 20th arrived and I hadn’t heard one word from thredUP, so I went to my account to check it out.  I also checked the thredUP website for an explanation of how long the process takes.  The website says…

“If you sent us a Clean Out Bag for payout, once your bag is processed, we will send you another email with your earnings.”
I never got that email.  I had to go to the site myself to get the disappointing information.

My payout was only $14.28 for four items!  That bag was stuffed with way more than four items.  So disappointing.  Had I hand carried my items to a local consignment store, I would have made much more. I take good care of my clothes, so they were truly gently used.

And it took a long time for me to receive my cash.  Over six weeks!  Grrr!

And I didn’t receive the entire amount of my measly $14.28 either!  PayPal took a fee, so the final amount paid to me was only $12.06.

And I had to go to the thredUP website to get my money.  No way do they send it out to you automatically!

The company NEVER emailed me informing me of my sell status.  This really made me mad!

And I had to WAIT 14 MORE days for a direct payout.

Another disappointing factor is that You Don’t Get To Cash Out Right Away!

I could use my measly earnings to shop on thredUP (no surprise) but I had to wait another 14 DAYS to cash out either by transferring the funds to a Visa prepaid card or through PayPal.  A direct check with the full earnings is NOT an option with ThredUp.  Thanks a lot thredUP.

I was also quite frustrated that thredUP provides no phone number and that I must email or live chat in. Once again, I tried to live chat and no one was available.  Like before, I had to send yet another email to thredUP.  I did receive a response and the thredUP employee explained the payout details, which is pretty poor as you can see…here is what she wrote back to me…
“When an item is accepted into our shop, we discount items anywhere from 70%-90% off their retail price and give you a percentage payout based on this resale value. If an item has a retail price of $50 for example, we would list it below $15.99 in our shop, items priced in this bracket $15.00-$19.99 would earn 13% of the resale price, which would earn you $1.95  for an item selling for $15.99 in our shop…”
Not a good return on my investment. And for the time it took for me to go through the clothing, mail it in and then wait the five long weeks to receive any news…and then being forced to wait another two weeks to cash out…ugh.  And one last note – it would cost me $10 to have my unsold clothing returned to me!  thredUP says that they donate the unsold clothing.  I hope that is true, but I have little faith in this disappointing company.  This company gets a big F grade from this manic managed mom!

 

 

 

Comments

  1. I feel your pain on this. I too sent a bag full to Thred Up, which was insane since the reviews are bad. I thought I’d take a chance, stuffed my bag full and had the same results, waiting forever, no ability to talk to anyone and a really small check. I have much better luck with local consignment or Poshmark. I’m actually thinking of doing a clothing swap. Maybe you’d be interested in joining me?!

    • ManagedMoms.com says:

      So sorry you also had a bad experience with thredUP. So awful! Go for the clothing swap! I am not interested at this point only because my schedule is crazy. But maybe in the future. Thanks so much for reading my blog and for leaving a comment. I appreciate it, Kim!

  2. I need to return a pair of shoes that I ordered. I’m unable to sign in (?) and would like to contact customer service. any suggestions?

  3. I completely agree that the payout is terrible (unless you do ThredUp Luxe). But you do need to keep in mind that they are doing all the work and have the overhead to pay for. Plus, there is a payout estimator so there should be no surprise.

  4. NORMA HEDGES says:

    I CURRENTLY HAVE OVER $70 IN MY ACCOUNT……EVERY TIME I ATTEMPT TO CASH OUT, THEY SEND ME AN INVALID CODE FOR EITHER OF THEIR CASH OUT PLACES……STRIPE OR PAYPAL….I NOW HAVE OVER 100 INVALID CODES WHICH LEADS ME TO THINK THEY NEED TO BE REPORTED AS A SCAM TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES.
    NORMA

  5. Alyson Barnett says:

    I’m really glad I read your reviews before I went to ThredUp. Just read about them In Good Housekeeping magazine. And to think I had good faith in GH. It just goes to show they don’t check there sources.
    Thank you for the heads up.

    • ManagedMoms.com says:

      Wow! That is good to know that about Good Housekeeping! Thank you for sharing that! Yep…stay away from ThredUp unfortunately.

  6. Donna Leftwich says:

    I don’t know what’s going with thredUP. I send in a 4th bag of very nice gently worn clothes, now they did send me a email saying they received my bag and I haven’t here anything from them since. None of my items have been posted. Matter of fact one of my bags had gently worn jeans and khaki pants, another bag had nice shift and maxi dresses I had to part with because I couldn’t fit them anymore. So thredUPhas cheated me royally Out of money. I have like $47 went I thrived to cash out it showed $27. I really don’t want to order anything from them but if I want my money I need to use the $47.plus UNBELIEVABLE

    • ManagedMoms.com says:

      Unfortunately stories like yours are why I wrote this bad review in my blog. So frustrating. Not a good company. At all.

      • ThredUp is not eBay, etc. ThredUp try to sell clothing instead of you cluttering your closet and for environment purposes. There are many advantages to buy or sell on ThredUp. Therefore, one needs to read about the selling process. I sent my items to give them a second chance, and other people want to make profit by selling fancy or big names brands. For that reason they have a luxury department on ThredUp. Needless to say, coming from another country or being here for a big whole, I didn’t mind to wear second hand or used clothes, and I find almost all my favorite brands I want to see on ThredUp.

  7. Having an issue with this company right now! Trying to find my password so I can unsubscribe…… nowhere to change the forgotten password. Emailed them and waited for a reply. Eventually got an email with instructions on how to change the password….. but the tab they told me to use does not exist….. at least not on my page! I have a Goody Bag to return, which incidentally they are discontinuing…… So I’m done!!

    • ManagedMoms.com says:

      That is so frustrating. I truly rarely write negative reviews as I tend to be a glass-is-half-full person, but this company was so unbelievably bad to deal with that I had to warn others. Glad you are done with this unreliable and unprofessional company. It is too bad as it is a great concept.

  8. Sheryl S. Cabot says:

    I also got about 10 dollars for about 12 items. I did slightly better on swap and got 14 dollars. Now I take stuff to the 2nd hand shop in town and got 140 dollars for 20 or so item, ! i DONATE anything that is not perfect.
    The prices are really high on Thredup- at least Swap is pretty cheap and no return fee. They don’t have any measurements but have gotten tons of clothes for grandkids…Thred up has a weird website- my computer is super slow but no issue with ebay, swap, posh, mercari, Kidizen and other sites.

  9. I just wanted to see what they had on Thred up, but it refuses to let you browse unless you sign up. So I was instantly not interested in them anymore, it’s just bad marketing! They’ll either clutter their website storage with accounts that never use their site again, or people like me will just click off the site when we see we have to sign up.

    • ManagedMoms.com says:

      Yep, that is another reason I wrote this article. I had SO many problems with this site so I wanted to warn others. Thanks for your comment.

  10. I experienced the exact same as you with my sent in clean-out bags. This last time however takes the cake. I sent in a full box (guess they don’t send the bags anymore?) and I included a Burberry coat that was too large for me that I’d never wear. After months of no word from ThredUp they finally processed my items. Guess what? No Burberry coat to be found anywhere. I am so mad at myself for not taking a photo of my kit contents. I finally got a live agent on the chat feature and of course they said they listed all 10 items that were in the box. Funny that the Burberry coat went missing. Lesson learned and from now on I’ll take my items to my local consignment store. Will not be using ThredUp ever again. They were great when they first got started and now they’ve grown too big to offer a better, more positive experience for their customers. Just my opinion here. I wish there was something I could do but without proof I figured I’m SOL. Thanks for sharing your story 🙂