TophatterReviews 7,894

If you win a bid that's really in your favor (low, low win) some seller's will intentionally screw up the order so that they can give a refund to correct their intentional screw up. In reality the sellers recover their loss by this means. They NEVER screw up when the bid is in their favor! BEWARE! I've seen people bid way way higher for things that are much cheaper on Ebay, Amazon, etc.

******UPDATE*****Tophatter gave a refund and a $5 credit to me plus a reprimand to the seller. That's satisfactory enough for me.

Like any site, Tophatter has its pluses and minuses. On the minus side first, you have to make sure you time your bid if it is going twice or it will not register, bid at the beginning of the going twice notice. Also, the goods are not always as good as what you see but if you click on it and review the write up you will get a better idea of what you are bidding on, and its functionality/quality.
On the plus side, bidding can be fun, a challenge. Some good deals are to be had. Also, items will appear more than once and you can have Tophatter flag you when the item is coming up again. With this tool you can let items pass if the bids become too high for you, there is always another opportunity to get it at the price you want.

I just got a 3-D Skull nightlight. It is not at all like it was represented, nothing 3-D about it. It is a piece of pexiglass with a design scratched on it that light from the base shines up thru. The price of return postage is so high that it's not worth it to send back. I think that's what they count on, so people will be stuck with their junk and they can just go on pawning off this crap on people. I'm pretty easy to get along with and don't complain much, but be warned, they're selling some garbage.

I said I would never buy again but because I was forced to pay out of pocket to return an item that was garbage, they would only give me a $21 credit on their site, so I pretty much had to buy from them or lose my money.
I bought one item to use up the credit. It arrived in pieces and was absolute garbage as well. Luckily, they just refunded with no questions asked, and I didn't have to return it, but instead of refunding the full amount, they put the credit back onto my account, so, again, I had to order or risk losing my money.
I was never able to see anything I wanted, and I was very hesitant to order again anyway, then I lost track of the date for the expiry on the credit, so it expired,
I contacted them and they added the credit back to my account again.
I bid on a bracelet, thinking the credit would go towards it, but it didn't. I guess it's my fault for not reading clearly, but I thought I could just order an item at a time until the amount of my credit was used up.
Not so.
I had to purchase an item of the same value or more than the credit in order for it to be applied.
The bracelet was only $8 with $2 shipping, so it wasn't a huge loss. It arrived in the mail fairly quickly, but it was very poorly packaged, and of course, there was a stone missing from it!
I said to my daughter, "Am I ever going to get anything from that stupid site that doesn't have a problem?"
I contacted them again, and a refund was issued with no questions. I don't have to return the bracelet, so I am not on the hook for shipping costs.
Once I read through again to find out why my credit had not been applied, I tried doing "Buy now" rather than bidding in order to use up the credit, but every single item I tried to buy came up as "Not available to buy now" even though there was that option on their pages, I finally found a purse that used up my $21 credit, I only hope the purse is fine, because if there is a problem, I will end up back in that stupid loop of having to use up a credit.
In the meantime, I had bid on another item and thought I had lost out, only to have a notice coming up telling me to pay for my order.(I blame that one on my own computer being very slow to register the bidding progress.) So I paid for that one, and I really shudder to think what it will be like, because it is electronic and possibly fragile.
So now I just wait for these items to arrive and, again, I hope they are not garbage or damaged.The track record so far is not good.

I didn't really feel I could write an honest review until I had ordered a number of items from different sellers and see how they compared.

PROS: Merchandise that is very reasonably priced and might be good quality.
CONS: You get what you pay for.

First item I bought was a "spy camera pen." Don't know why I jumped on this, but it looked interesting. I think it cost me $10 and didn't work. Tophatter has a 30 day return policy but... WHERE? Everything I've received has been from China and how am I supposed to get it back there? It would probably cost me more to ship it back than it cost to order. I checked that up to a loss. One Star.

Second item were 3mm gold earrings and they were fine and came with a free heart necklace. Good quality for what it was. Three Stars.

Third item was a bangle bracelet with purple jewels. My wife already has some of these so I know right away what is quality and what is not. Surprisingly, this was very high quality with good weight. Didn't feel or look cheap. Four Stars.

Fourth item was a piece of lingerie. Supposedly ranked as "high quality." Since it's for the wife (and not for me) and a Christmas present, I haven't seen it on her yet. The quality seems fine. Three stars.

I've ordered a few more items and will see what they're like. My out-lay of cash hasn't been that bad so I don't mind taking the risk and, so far, I've been satisfied.

Couple other notes. If you order something by accident, you can cancel the order but if you cancel more than a couple orders you won't be allowed to bid for a week. This was on THEM, though, not on me as I thought I was bidding on a certain item when, all of a sudden, I had won some other item I didn't bid on. I tried to tell them that there was a glitch and no one seemed to care. Still, it was easy to cancel the order. Lastly, one time I was bidding on an item and my bid was $6 and suddenly it jumped to $28 and I won. I had to cancel that order, too.

I bought a queen size blanket. I received a pc of fabric the size of a $2 bath towel-42 x 27
So disappointed in everything I purchased. Its all garbage! Descriptions are lies. I bought stuff with usa seller. That was a lie too! Total rip off site! Run away from these people! Sketchy as Hell!