I first heard about the throne gift exchange as I was a member of throne and a PR company working with one of the exchange programs, now initially it sounded like a fantastic idea where you would get partnered up and pick gifts each other would like, how it works is you get someone chosen to gift for and then someone chosen to gift for you, these are all different individuals so you’re not simply buying each other gifts it’s an endless circle of gifts around all participants.
The website claims that you will 100% be guaranteed to receive a gift, and if no gift is received they claim that a regifter will get you the perfect gift, I can confirm that in my experience this is absolutely not the case because in 5 exchanges I have received from 2 of them and there is no regifter to buy you a gift if your item does not arrive, the customer support is attrocious and in the case of a digital good that didn’t arrive they state “this is a one off special circumstance and we will refund this” but they make out that this is not something they would normally do and don’t seem to care that the item has not even ever been sent just because I also stated that I would not want them to try to pursue the digital goods as it would have been unwanted, then in the instance of another gift that 6 weeks later has still not arrived and on their tracking doesn’t even show as shipped just shows “ordered” they’re seeming to refuse to even refund and definitely won’t replace with a regifter actually buying a gift that might be wanted where there’s plenty of options for gifts I would enjoy.
The tracking on my last exchange item shipping from the uk to the uk shows it going through an export process from the uk, to china, then back which is completely scammy and dodgy and extortionately adds to postage fees and is a very unusual choice of shipping option increasing the likelyhood of a package going missing or being tampered with and even catching diseases such as covid as it travels the world pointlessly. As a result though this is “royal mail 48 hour” there is no sign of the package and it currently sits in china despite it’s origin initiating in the uk.
The premise is that you will be randomly matched with other users, and you deposit $25 (which paying in the uk means an additional £1 non sterling transaction fee on top) and then you choose gifts above this for your partner, the site is pretty horrible to use as searches don’t come up with things you type into them and it becomes very challenging to actually find something you want especially when the prices it shows on the search results change entirely when you click on the actual page, then extortionate shipping costs are added on top (as your item travels the world even if it leaves from the uk seemingly) and on top of this further fee’s and taxes are added which even if it’s a uk item where the law is that taxes and fee’s are included the website will still add sales taxes on top against uk laws.
In my first exchange I got a partner who did not look remotely on my wishlist and just chose the first “popular gift” shown on the website now at the time I had a nier automata mousemat on my wishlist for £20 from the official square enix store with free postage, but my gifter did not look on my wishlist and I ended up with just some generic mousemat shipped from america at great expense but for lesser value and lesser loved just because zero effort to even look on my wishlist and this meant I have to remove a wishlist item that would’ve been loved because garbage equivalent is ordered.
The second experience is essentially 3 gift exchanges that all happened at once, for cyber monday and black friday however the website ensured these exchanges happened “in advance” of these so you would recieve them on these “holidays” rather than buying anything that might be discounted for each other as a nice gift and getting good things of better value instead they were full retail, at this point there was also a “st nicolas” exchange too and of these 3 exchanges one person looked on my wishlist and got some ice cube trays (which already overpriced for a 4 icecube tray) and a £2 including shipping USB hub I wanted. The first gift that showed promise that something nice might be possible, but with the other exchanges one ordered a complete scam overlay package, which you can create completely free on streamlabs but even though it’s an overpriced scam as it is the digital item was never even sent to me, when questioning this throne were hesitant to even refund and had to complain heavily just to get a refund on that (and no sign of regifter so you literally get no gift and lose the money and time you spent picking a nice gift for someone else)
The other exchange I was paired with Chëllí who it is clear never made any effort to look on my wishlist and just chose whatever was on the “popular gifts” section again, which when joining an exchange like this where you can spend the same money on something that would be loved why would you choose something someone wouldn’t like? They don’t appear to even be a content creator so simply joined to try for something nice themselves while making absolutely counter intuitive effort and buying something unwanted for their gift partner, and worse than that the item has no tracking and just shows as “ordered” where all exchange items show when they are shipped and recieved so this clearly was never even sent.
I complained because of the missing gifts to throne and their advice was to write on your profile and make things very clear so I did and made it very clear not to just order generic “popular gifts” and point at my wishlist which had nice items for the same or cheaper but this was again ignored and I somehow defying the odds was matched to receive this horrible gifter yet again
If you were to calculate roughly the odds of being matched by the same individual with rough numbers of participants in the exchanges 192×1647 is 1 in 316,224 that I would match with the same guy again which is pretty astronomical odds and clearly there’s some biased algorythm to match me with someone who never bothers to look on your profile or read it every single time which is extra disgusting as I had raised issue when the digital item didn’t arrive that I am constantly matched with partners to gift for me who do not read my profile or wishlist and always choose horrible things when there are items on my wishlist of equivalent value that would have been loved and could have been chosen rather than wasting money.
Now for all of the exchanges I put in time trying to find nice gifts for my partners which was very hard considering how awful the site is to use, the first gifter I tried to find something they would like and ended up with an actioncam 1080p which I hope they recieved, the next exchangers which all came together I mixed up someone’s profile for another and discovered later accidentally sending the catpaw socks listed on one persons wishlist to the wrong recipient (because the throne profiles aren’t properly linked and you have to seperately research and order) and the other guy a fun cthuluan cookbook. The next echange I got a partner who liked to cook but throne would not let me order any of the cookbooks for them stating that I could not deliver to their country, and spending hours trying I gave up and ended up getting a puzzle book as they liked puzzles but I don’t feel happy I got the best gift I could but the site is so draining and horrible to use as it refuses every gift you attempt. On the last exchange I got partnered someone who liked f1 and was vegan I tried vegan chocolates with fancy big packs a few times but the site was being awkward about that so I ended up ordering them a really fancy formula 1 car shaped bottle opener which was so detailed it could practically be a model on display so looked really nice and should be loved, I feel I tried at least and if I recieved even half that effort I would’ve been satisfied getting something remotely similar to anything on my wishlists or desires, and I even put contact me if you have issues but only 1 in the whole 5 was something remotely off my wishlist
Every other gift was either off the “popular items” straight on the homepage, or the digital scam item and of those only 1 gift has arrived so 2 gifts total out of 5 have arrived, one is lost dodgily shipped to china for no reason one seems entirely unshipped and one digital item literally never recieved so 100% guaranteed gifts seems a stretch for certain.
The customer support on this just have a really bad attitude and really don’t care they claim this is “all part of the fun” as they make bank on ridiculous shipping fee’s where they likely reclaim the postage costs sending it through dubious methods rather than what they should so it’s delayed and lost (this is the experience I’m seeing and is evidenced) and what should be a really amazing idea of exchanging gifts each other would like instead becomes a horrible experience of zero effort wasting money on things they know wont be wanted, while I seem to have been one of the very few who actually attempts to make effort to pick something that would be liked in exchange I have recieved practically nothing, the postage fee’s eat all the value out of everything even if you do recieve an item but my experience is you’re not likely to recieve your gift at all and it’s likely because your item is being shipped on a worldwide tour when it should simply be posted to you from your own country.
All in all this has been a horrible experience and while I gave it every effort and attempt to make it work and even tried contacting support to ensure that at the very least on the last christmas exchange that I wouldn’t be matched with someone horrible they somehow went through extra steps to ensure that I was once again paired with someone horrible who makes no effort to care to gift something nice whatsoever the attitude of the staff really seems to be that of not wanting to make this work as a site, and just make bank off of the backs of others with it seemingly being a scheme to push sales through their partnered sites, where they earn affiliate commissions on top of all of these fee’s and then extend further fee’s through ridiculous postage costs, where often there should be free shipping but they instead inflate it to pay for your package to travel around the world like Philleas Fogg, Will it arrive within 80 days? Not likely and will their customer support care not remotely.
While the main throne website itself seems a nice idea to allow creators to have a safe wishlist (even if taxes are added ontop of already taxed items and prices seem to be suspiciously increased besides these also) the exchanges site is definitely to be avoided as you’ll have nothing but dissappointment and you’re better off just spending the money on gifts for yourself, as despite my every effort to pick nice things for my exchange partners (who were different to the people I recieved gifts from) I’ve had mostly non existant and horrible gifts from all but one of my partners, and that’s really unacceptable.
My throne wishlist is at https://throne.com/indelacio where you can see the many lovely gifts I would’ve appreciated that could’ve been purchased but were not as my partners made no effort to even visit my profile or attempt to find anything I may like from my tastes and interests and just wasted money on tat and clutter, and out of 5 exchanges, only 2 have arrived and that’s unbelievably bad and of those only one has been “refunded” not even a regifter to buy something nice with the money, just money given back to me at a loss as I have to re-exchange back into sterling for my bank account