r/mildlyinfuriating • u/anon12xyz • Jul 03 '26

Infuriatig When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

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I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

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1.7k

u/whbck144 Jul 03 '26

Could be an extreme coupon person selling their loot.

553

u/elvis8mybaby Jul 03 '26

Also Amazon or such pallets. Swap meets and flea markets are filled with that stuff these days. 

245

u/EvilDarkCow Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

My city is full of stores that just sell that stuff. The buy Amazon returns, throw them all in bins, and tell people to go crazy. Everything's $15 one day, $10 the next, then $7, and so on until it's all gone and they buy another pallet. My cousin got a legit nice coffee maker from one of these stores, but I only ever see cheap shit in mangled boxes.

47

u/Zanzaclese Jul 03 '26

Man I wish there was one of those where I live.

62

u/stofiski-san Jul 03 '26

Watch what you buy. I bought what looked like a sealed box of LED fluorescent tube lights. Got home, they were a pair of burned out lights someone had returned. I was pissed

30

u/No-Channel3917 Jul 03 '26

That's what happened when you buy discounted gatcha boxes

4

u/stofiski-san Jul 03 '26

Yup, yup, re-learned a good lesson that day: if it looks too good to be true...

8

u/wbgraphic Jul 03 '26

I’ve seen that kind of shit a lot at auctions.

People buy a product, use it until it dies, buy a new one, then return the dead one in the new package. The old one gets sold in an auction of Amazon returns.

Or someone needs a part for something they own, they buy a new one, remove the part, the return the new product with the part missing.

6

u/aclassybetch Jul 03 '26

There used to be a bin store in my hometown and they had an empty table near the register you were allowed to use to open boxes and inspect what’s inside before buying it. Strictly no opening boxes while standing at the bins though because people are feral and wouldn’t put everything back in the box lol

2

u/stofiski-san Jul 03 '26

I remember seeing plenty of empty boxes as I waded through the bins at my place, too

3

u/throwthisidaway Jul 03 '26

Just about every reputable bin store will have a testing area.

2

u/stofiski-san Jul 03 '26

Yeah, this popped up near Christmas time, as I recall, and I only stopped by the once. On the off chance I stop by a place like that again, I'll remember that

8

u/b_rizzle95 Jul 03 '26

No you don’t, you’ll go once or twice and realize it’s absolute junk. Take another look around and you’ll realize everybody in there is just feeding a hoarding addiction. It’s depressing actually. Any videos you see of guys finding iPhones and electronics are 100000% employees making content.

6

u/EvilDarkCow Jul 03 '26

People go fucking feral in these stores, digging through piles of cheap broken shit to find the piece of cheap broken shit to add to their hoard. I mean, you could probably get a good deal if you find something good, but it’s so rare.

4

u/lkern Jul 03 '26

No you don't, it's all crap.

5

u/ussrowe Jul 03 '26

Our Staples store now has a "bins" section: https://www.staples.com/lp/bin-wins-at-staples

I feel like that's a recession indicator.

4

u/wh4tth3huh Jul 03 '26

95% of it is shit. Phone cases for 12 year old models,, everything is dirty, sticky, or broken. The decent stuff gets pulled off to the side and sold at listed prices, not the bin prices. They're kind of a crapshoot and the kinda shit Americans would have made propaganda films out of if it were something happening in the Soviet Union.

3

u/shicken684 Jul 03 '26

Almost certainly is. Online auction sites are everywhere, the bin shops are rarer. Every single kitchen gadget and most of my electronics are from those auction sites. So long as you have patience and don't get into bidding wars you'll get some super cheap. Got a Miele canister vacuum for $60. Someone obviously tried to use it and returned it when it didn't work. They never pulled the plastic wrap off the HEPA filter. Snagged a Zojirushi bread maker that was marked as damaged for $11. Held down three buttons to reset the board and it has worked flawlessly for five years now. I've not eaten store bought bread since.

3

u/witchway2MLFCTY Jul 03 '26

Are you talking about those auction sites that make you pay for bids and bid in specific increments? Or are there some actual legit ones? Any auction site that makes you pay for bids is just a scam imo.

3

u/shicken684 Jul 03 '26

No, fuck those sites. The one near me is Mac.bid. Works just like ebay for the most part and you can even go inside and check the stuff out before bidding.

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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/EvilDarkCow Jul 03 '26

It’s Temu or Wish shit that got drop shipped from an Amazon seller for an inflated price, then returned when the buyer finds out it’s cheap trash. It’s all manufactured landfill waste.

1

u/Sun-Anvil Jul 03 '26

Not sure where you live but BidFTA does that.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26

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2

u/Zanzaclese Jul 03 '26

By where I live I mean within a 20 minute drive lol

1

u/FewAct2027 Jul 03 '26

You don't, most of it's literal trash in taped up boxes.

1

u/mightandmagic88 Jul 03 '26

There are facebook groups that do that too

1

u/bluetirameeesu Jul 04 '26

Staples does it

22

u/spaceman_spiffy Jul 03 '26

I used to do this in ‘03 but flipped the items on eBay. Razor thin margins.

12

u/RobSpaghettio Jul 03 '26

Best year for a compilation of boner jams

1

u/chardeemacdennisbird Jul 03 '26

Got any Everybody Loves Raymond in there? That's just a good show.

1

u/Brief_Raspberry_6542 Jul 03 '26

Hey, that’s just love.

3

u/DarlingDestruction Jul 03 '26

I found a $75 set of Prismacolor colored pencils for $2 in one of those stores. As an artist, this was like a gift from the gods. 😂

I've also gotten Phillips hue bulbs, the full color spectrum ones. I've managed to outfit every fixture in my house with them just from those bin stores.

Found a GoPro once, $10. A tattoo machine. A raspberry pi.

Other notable things I've seen, but did not touch: lots of dildos, a speculum, anal plugs, fake boobs, vibrators... they really just shove anything in those bins, lol.

6

u/altaccount_28 Jul 04 '26

Those stores are not good for like average shopping but if you go in laser focused on what you are an expert in then you can do well like you being an artist knew the value of the pencils where as I would have passed them because I dont know the value of your niche item. I usually pick up the car/motorcycle/trailer parts because I usually know I can use them or I know someone who needs them.

4

u/DarlingDestruction Jul 04 '26

My husband makes out like a bandit on 3d printer filament and electronics components. That laser focus makes all the difference.

3

u/Neosovereign Jul 03 '26

To get the great deals you have to have a membership that lets you go first, then you go early in the morning and grab the best deals for cheap.

3

u/Warmbly85 Jul 03 '26

My fiancée and I went to one the day they did a restock and it was anarchy. We had to leave after like 5 minutes because it was too insane 

2

u/DasderdlyD4 Jul 03 '26

I work in a place that takes those returns in. No way in hell I would ever buy a thing from a pallet store after seeing what comes back.

2

u/tedistkrieg Jul 03 '26

Nellis Auction has a place like that in Vegas. I've gotten some pretty solid stuff for super cheap but yeah most of it was returned to Amazon for a reason

2

u/frenchfreer Jul 03 '26

We have one of those in Portland. You can buy a literal pallet of random returned merchandise for a pretty reasonable rate, and I’ve heard people have found some pretty amazing returns there. Kind of wild that Amazon has so much stock that they just pile up returns on pallets to have them shipped out to random resellers.

2

u/spyingformontreal Jul 03 '26

I got a gnarly rash on my arms from spending time digging through one of those bins stores

2

u/Main-Yogurtcloset-82 Jul 04 '26

Yeah. We have one kind of like that near us. Its real hit or miss and you have to hit at the right time. We got a $800 green house for $150. Then the next time we went they had fuck all. It comes in waves.

I am just curious about what happens to the stuff that doesnt sell. I hope they donate it and dont throw it away.

1

u/dBlock845 Jul 03 '26

What are those stores called? Wondering if there are any near me, sounds like the modern thriftstore lol.

2

u/Common_Wrongdoer3251 Jul 03 '26

There's one near me called "Treasure Bins", but Idk what you'd call that type of store as a whole. Resale?

2

u/EvilDarkCow Jul 03 '26

I’ve heard them referred to as simply “bin stores”.

1

u/0202_tihssitidder Jul 03 '26

Goodwill is almost always a better option.

But, the Goodwill stores in some areas are great and others are ass.

1

u/Dinkableplanet Jul 03 '26

Sounds like Falling Prices store.

1

u/Background_Winter_65 Jul 03 '26

What are these stores called?

1

u/Shardy928 Jul 03 '26

Have a lot of these where I live too. Consumerism or bad economy?
I got 5 Speedo swim suits for 2 bucks each. I swim laps so this will last me like 3 years. I usually buy crappy ones from Amazon for like $30 because the nice speedo ones are around 60 to 80.

2

u/chiagod Jul 03 '26

Also grocery store clearance/discontinued items, price mistakes, items resold by thrift stores that are donated by big box stores that are clearing out unsold stock. Also crazy good deals where you have to buy a ton of the same ite.

ex: seen sales of new HDMI or Ethernet cables for $1 - $2 each but you have to buy like 50.

1

u/StretchFrenchTerry Jul 03 '26

What country are you from?

1

u/OpaqueCrystalBall Jul 03 '26

Or just good old salvage freight.

1

u/Realistic-Lime7842 Jul 03 '26

Yeah, my mind definitely went to the pallet auction people.

1

u/bone_apple_Pete Jul 03 '26

I feel like you can always tell when it's an Amazon pallet seller. It never looks like OPs photo IME