Clothes For Cash – NO LONGER TRADING

16 September 2013: I have been informed by a commenter that Clothes For Cash is no longer trading. Their website is currently displaying the following notice:

It is with great regret that we must inform you that Clothes For Cash Ltd has ceased trading with immediate effect

For awhile now I’ve seen adverts for places offering to buy your old clothes, shoes and accessories for cash. The idea is really simple – you bag up your old clothes (etc) and either take them to a cash for clothes location, or you arrange for a collection (which is usually free of charge). You then get paid per kilo of items they accept.

I’ve been a bit dubious about trying any cash for clothes place, so please let me stress that, to me, this is a last resort. I had previously cycled these clothes through eBay, car boot sales and in the end I even tried a job lot of clothes on eBay before sending the rest off. Music Magpie also now accept clothes!

Deciding on a company to use was the hardest part. A lot of the companies offer as little as 20p per kilo and I was also concerned about items being rejected. I came across Clothes For Cash, seeing that not only do they offer 60p per kilo, they arrange free collection and they had fantastic reviews. As I’d already tried to flog these items to death, I thought I’d have nothing to lose, and I sent away for my free collection pack. The collection pack arrived the next day, so we were off to a fantastic start. It took me awhile to eventually get round to filling the sack and arranging a collection – I wanted to try the job lot on eBay just one more time, but I had no luck.

I put everything into the large bag – they say it can hold 30kg, and I had almost filled it. It proved difficult to weigh, so I tried getting on the scales whilst holding the bag, then deducting my weight. Except that I couldn’t even lift the bag. Plan B was to try and weigh the bag by itself – which covered the digital display. In the end we came to the conclusion that the bag weighed around 23kg.

I arranged collection on 2nd July for the 4th July. You can opt to leave the bag outside as long as you give them 24 hour’s notice. I was too scared to do this, so we just kept the bag inside by the front door. It was collected promptly by City Link and on 10th July I received an email telling me that my bag contained 22kg, 2 of which they deemed to be unacceptable. Thinking about what was in the bag, I’d really pushed the boundaries and I hadn’t checked clothes for stains or holes, plus they were a few pairs of grubby shoes in there, so 2kg deemed unacceptable seemed more than fair to me.

You can choose to receive your payment via Paypal, bank transfer or cheque. You can also choose to donate your payment to charity. When using a new (to me) company, I always opt for a cheque. I know payment may be delayed by two weeks whilst waiting for it to arrive and to clear, but it saves me giving any valuable information to a company who aren’t quite legit.

The cheque arrived on 15th July, dated 10th July. All in all, the process has been completely painless and very fast. I would be more than happy to use their service again – in fact, once I get over to my Dad’s house to sort through some more clothes I’ve tried selling at boot sales, I’ll be heading to Clothes For Cash.

Have you used a “cash for clothes” service? What was your experience like?