Beware of Thred Up

I had a lot of clothes in my closet that I couldn’t fit anymore, and they have been traveling with me everywhere I went. It was taking up too much room. I move around a lot, and this was too, and there was always too much. So I was trying to find the best way to get rid of the things I no longer needed.

This is when I came across Thred Up. I knew of them as an online thrift store, but I wasn’t aware that they would pay you for your clothes if they were in newish quality. I thought why not, but I was wrong.

The first thing I learned is that you have to send them your clothes and if they choose to sell it, you will be compensated, but if they don’t you will have to pay them to retrieve your clothes. I thought with the amount of money that they could sell my clothes for, the ten dollars to retrieve my property would be paid off and I would get maybe a small profit, so I agreed to the terms.

I sent in my things, and it took them about two months to tell me what they would keep to sell, and what they would return to me. This would usually take less time, but because of Covid, it took a while longer. They only took 5 of my items, and sent the rest back.

They said that they give you 12 hours to change the sale price from when the items are live on sale, but they email you to tell you that the items are live. Who is watching their emails that closely to know when the 12 hour clock has started? So I actually didn’t even know that they were done with the 12 point inspection until I received the rejects back, and by that time, the items were already up for sale.

I figured with those five items selling, I would get something back. A little while ago I found out that 1 of the items didn’t sell, and with the 4 items that did sell, I still didn’t receive more than $10. In fact, I only made about 3 dollars. That was 4 items of clothing, and all I made was 3 dollars.

This meant that I was still in the hole, and the other item’s sale had expired. So they wanted me to pay to retrieve that one too after I just paid to retrieve my other clothes. This would put me further in the hole. I refused, but now they can do whatever they want with the item, and I will not get paid for it.

After seeing that it was obvious that I wasn’t going to win on this, I looked up the reviews, and I felt like a complete idiot. All of the reviews are great for people buying the clothes, but the sellers all complain about similar issues as I was having with this company.

Honestly, I feel like they stole from me. I could have easily given my clothes to a consignment shop locally, and got the money for them without any cost or I could have donated them to Goodwill or a local charity. Instead, I thought maybe I could get a few dollars for the clothes that I was no longer wearing and I barely wore at all. Knowing that they made money off of my clothes and I didn’t burns me up inside.

All of this to say, do not trust selling to Thred Up. You will not be paid for your items. Find a charity to give your gently worn clothes. There are people in real need of what you have to offer, and your clothes would be better off there.

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