In the "What Lego set did you buy today?" thread, I mentioned a lot I got over on Shop Goodwill, and how my bulk lot was confused with another bulk lot (that ended at the same time).  My lot was for 35 lbs for $225 and the other lot was 31 lbs for $111.  I suspect that my lot has a Market Street modular in it.

When I received the lot yesterday, I went through it and discovered I got the 31 lbs lot.  I contacted Goodwill today, and they mentioned that the other buy hadn't received the lot yet.

This afternoon, Goodwill contacted me and told me first, that I did receive the correct lot, and they just misweighed it - they'd be willing to refund me a small amount for the mistake.  I called them out on it, and told them I specifically had pieces that I could identify (and provided pictures to them) that matched the contents of the 31 lbs lot (the lot I had incorrectly been sent).

The agreed, and said that the other buyer stated he was "out of town" and "couldn't deal with this until September."

The other buyer did bid on my lot, so I suspect they are aware of the possible Market Street in that lot.  I have a feeling they may take the next week and a half trying to grab as much as they can before sending it back (if they even both too - after all, they just got 4 more lbs than they though, a potential Market Street as well, all for $100 less than I paid for it).

So...what should I do?  I told them I'd take the weekend to figure this out.

1. Wait until this guy comes back and (hopefully) sends the lot back to them (at that point, sending mine in as well).

2. Keep this lot and ask for a refund down to the price he paid for the lot.

3. Just ask for a full refund.

I'm a little conflicted.  There's some cool stuff in there, but I really wanted that Market Street.  I'd rather just have the lot I bought.  I'm almost of the mind to not even keep this lot (and spend the time going through it, despite knowing there's some jems in there), just to get my money back and move on with my life.

Thoughts?  What would you do?

Option 2 is not really an option because of your mental state.  You are already anguished because you didn't get what you purchased and you were looking forward to a particular part of the lot so you will only end up disappointed going through this new lot, unless there is something of equal brilliance. 

If you do go with option 2, you could always sell it bulk to someone who wants to go through it.

You are in a tough spot Alpine. It sounds like you aren't complete stoked with the lot that you received, so I would just ask for a full refund. If you went with option 1, there are lots of perils. The guy will have the chance to sift through it, then send it back to goodwill. Goodwill will have the chance to bumble it up again before sending it out to you. By the time you got it, it would have passed through way too many hands and problem points. It could be a month and 1/2 before you even saw it. And if it wasn't right when you got it, it's more time spent. 

It's tough to see a Market Street slip through your hands.

i agree... send it back on their dime and get a refund. Sheet happens and prolonging this will just make you angrier and something bad just gets worse. Chalk it up and move on.

Send it all back for a full refund.  A shame you missed out, but you'll be back to where you started.  Chalk it up to experience and move on.

If it were me, I'd go with no. 3 also.

#1 seems highly unlikely to happen in my mind, so I'd go with #3.

What happened certainly sucks, but i would probably just get a full refund and be done with it.

Peace of mind trumps all imo.

After seeing the auction links in the other thread, I think you got lucky.  I still don't see any evidence of a MS beyond the partial baseplate.  The windows that I did see do not match the set.  I'd either keep the one you got at the reduced price if possible since you said it had some good stuff or send back and get your money back.  Sorry to hear that this has become a nightmare.  I'm not going to say I told you so, that wouldn't be cool, but I'll say I feel your pain from SGW.  The other buyer if full of it too, he's sifting through the lot right now since he/she sees a perfect opportunity to cherry pick for free since Goodwill messed up.  You don't want sloppy seconds.

I've been doing the Goodwill thing for two years now, so definitively aware of this risk.

I do believe he is cherry picking the lot right now.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone. I'm going to just ask for a refund from them and send back this lot. Time to move along.

I wanted to provide a quick update to everyone:

I sent a note off to Goodwill on Sunday evening, asking for a full refund of all costs, including fees and shipping costs, due to the error.  Since I didn't receive what I paid for, there was no way for me to guarantee that they could recover 100% of what I paid for, and I wasn't interested in keeping the lot that I did receive, I felt it was the best thing to do.

Silence on Monday.

Tuesday morning, I received a note back saying that as soon as they received the Lego, I would get the refund.

I promptly wrote back that I would send it back as soon as they sent me a mailing label.  That finally arrived today.  I'm shipping it out momentarily.

 

We'll see if they actually give me my full funds back.  I have this nagging suspicion that they are going to wait until I say something to refund every penny.  I'm pretty sure they expected me to pay to ship it back until I said something.

Sorry, but you're mistake, you pay for it.  And good luck getting the other $100 out of the other guy, who most likely is keeping the lot that I won (or, is picking out Market Street we speak, and sending back some dummy blocks to make up for it, if at all).

That's too bad. Hopefully they'll be quick about the refund...

sorry, hadn't been following the other thread, but isn't Goodwill a charity? isn't it kinda unsettling (for the lack of a better term) to cause them to loose additional funds on what was probably a easy mistake to make for whoever the volunteers were that packed & shipped the stuff out to you?   wouldn't you be able to at least break even on what you were sent without all the grief?

 

sorry, hadn't been following the other thread, but isn't Goodwill a charity? isn't it kinda unsettling (for the lack of a better term) to cause them to loose additional funds on what was probably a easy mistake to make for whoever the volunteers were that packed & shipped the stuff out to you?   wouldn't you be able to at least break even on what you were sent without all the grief?

 

I'm sure if we start thinking "charity," we could go all different directions. Maybe send it back and tell them to keep the money, shoot, throw a $100 bill in the lot.
I learned the hard way buying stuff in-store is risky as it is, but at least you see what you're buying. I think if they're going to do online auctions, you should at least expect to get what appeared in the picture, not knowing what's under the top layer is enough risk as it is. However, showing a partial Market Street will obviously drive some of us to bid exponentially higher than what we'd pay for any general lot of bricks, which I'd see as SNAD. I love donating to Goodwill when the heart is in it, but it's not such a warm fuzzy feeling when you're mentally writing off a loss from someone else's mistake.

sorry, hadn't been following the other thread, but isn't Goodwill a charity? isn't it kinda unsettling (for the lack of a better term) to cause them to loose additional funds on what was probably a easy mistake to make for whoever the volunteers were that packed & shipped the stuff out to you?   wouldn't you be able to at least break even on what you were sent without all the grief?

 

Goodwill the physical store?  Yes.  Shopgoodwill.com?  Not at all, it's a business to them and should be treated as such. 

Goodwill and most of the charity thrift stores are a joke. I don't think even half of the donation proceeds go to needy people. The CEOs of all of these non for profit organizations are millionaires . Bottom line- if you make a mistake, own up to it- no exceptions.

sorry, hadn't been following the other thread, but isn't Goodwill a charity? isn't it kinda unsettling (for the lack of a better term) to cause them to loose additional funds on what was probably a easy mistake to make for whoever the volunteers were that packed & shipped the stuff out to you?   wouldn't you be able to at least break even on what you were sent without all the grief?

 

Goodwill is a charity, but, at what point do you draw the line?  If I had received an equal value lamp, should I just try to sell that to recoup my money?  The auction site does allow for returns if the item is SNAD.  Which is what this came down to.  Yes, I could have accepted a refund down from $225 to $111 (the difference in the two auctions), and then made an attempt to recover my costs.  But what if I wasn't it in for the resell opportunities?  Then I'd be stuck with a whole lot of stuff I didn't want.

I'm not asking for anything outside of their rules for playing on the auction site.  I'm just asking them to play by the same rules that they agree to play by.

Goodwill is a charity, but, at what point do you draw the line?  If I had received an equal value lamp, should I just try to sell that to recoup my money?  The auction site does allow for returns if the item is SNAD.  Which is what this came down to.  Yes, I could have accepted a refund down from $225 to $111 (the difference in the two auctions), and then made an attempt to recover my costs.  But what if I wasn't it in for the resell opportunities?  Then I'd be stuck with a whole lot of stuff I didn't want.

I'm not asking for anything outside of their rules for playing on the auction site.  I'm just asking them to play by the same rules that they agree to play by.

I agree.  Despite them being a charity their behavior towards Alpinemaps for a mistake made on their part was not the most professional (delayed replies, ambiguous answers).  I donate stuff to Goodwill physical stores all the time with the hope it or the proceeds go towards somebody in need.  When buying something of the website I would consider it the same as buying from Amazon.

In my personal experience nothing gets a company's attention more than money.  Well thought out letters seem to fall on deaf ears and never receive a response.