General Chat

You are certainly not being trivial,

For the last eighteen years of my working life, I was employed in a Salvation Army community centre in which we had two shops. It would certainly not have been allowed in them.

Please, please do report it to Head Office. I too am incensed, I give to charity shops all the time and I am horrified at your story.
You must go to the top, a very stroppyletter. Then and only then tighter regulations may come in.
It is certainly making me think , must look up and see if I can find a Salvation Army place. Iam sure that is a safer bet.

Barbara,
I am absolutely appalled by your experience.
I help out in a charity shop, and I can assure you that we are not allowed to have anything for nothing! In fact, we are not allowed to buy any items unless they have first been on display in the shop.
In our shop, we are allowed a small discount (in return for a day's work) but we can only have that discount on the day we work and most volunteers don't bother anyway. We get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing we are helping to raise money for a worthwhile cause.
I strongly advise you to report the shop where you dropped off your items - it gives charity shops a bad name. Heaven knows, without the goodwill of people donating unwanted items, we'd be in a very poor position. With the current economic situation, we are relying on people's generosity more than ever. Please report it.

Edit: Forgot to say...... in our shop, all volunteer purchases have to be recorded in a book, to show each purchase is above board, I suppose. Another volunteer has to take the money at the till and also sign the book to say you've paid.

Thanks Ann
I thought there would be people on here who would know, I won't let it drop and I'll let you know what they say.

Have a sit down Taff, no sorry couldn't help myself, yes I will have a word with Rach and I will be going into the shop tomorrow, but it's obvious from some of the replies it's not an isolated case is it .

I'm being a hussy on Gen at the moment and trying to solve Shimms puzzle, busy night tonight lol.

I know what to do now when I need new new/used clothes.......go and volunteer for a charity workshop!!!
I think that about sums it up!!!

Sorry Ann, you must have pressed submit just before me!!lol

Barb,. I had a brainwave (stop laughing!!)
Have a word with" Rach of the shires", I think she is a manager of a charity shop!!

I would hate to think your experience would put people off donating to charity shops. I am a trustee for a Gloucestershire charity and we have a shop. It is definitely not accepted practice that volunteers in the shop get first picking and especially that they don't have to pay.. In fact anything they buy is closely monitored as is the same in most charity shops I am sure. There will always be a few rotten eggs. And not all the charity bags put through doors sre scams either. some are collected on behalf of the charity, it usually says on the bag that the charity gets x% of the total profit. i tend not to give to those. others like the Salvation army, heart foundation, The childrens society are collected and sorted and sent to the shops concerned.
I would definitely write to the head off ice of the charity concerned, they will be grateful to you, after all they are losing money by this, especially as you put the word around and more people don't take in goods.
Ann
Glos

No its not Barb theese people are in a place of trust by the chartiy who want to raise as much as posible from the donations and buy paying a manager they are trusted to do just that .Good luck and I hope you have a good result. but dont bank on it

I am amazed at some of these stories, totally amazed.

This is the problem Janet, if I go in and openly accuse her, she can say she paid for the top, but I will go in and see how far I can take it, it's just not right is it?

I'm glad that person was caught, she should have been prosecuted.

A manager in the local clic sold donations on ebay She was caught out by another volenteer who had unpacked the parcel and admired an unusal ornimet, after not seeing on display she asked how much they got for it?asumming it was sold. But the manager said it was stolen and laughed. My Aunt was the other lady and knew she likes looking on ebay and there it was!!! so aunt bid and won for £150.00 when it arrived it had the managers name and address as the seller needless to she was sacked but never prosicuted was a case of my aunts word against hers Now we have our own sales and send the money raised directly to the charity .What a sad world we live in

I will go into the shop tomorrow and ask to see the manager and take it from there.

I think I must be naive Foggy, I have always donated stuff to charity shops, sometimes very nice things because I am one of those people who can be a size 12 on Monday and a size16 by the end of the week :))

I will in future wear my clothes till they are dropping off my back and also I will only give cash to charities I am sure are doing real good, such as PDSA and the RSPCA and hope they don't abuse the system, I feel cheated so the madder I am getting, this woman had better watch out if she's there tomorrow.

Actually the scabies thing sounds fun Marion, lol.

Barbara xx

i certainly agree with you, i would be most upset if i had got that response that it was a 'perk' of the job.

not the same but i used to work in a library and due to low finances people would donate their books to us, either to put on the shelf or to sell along with our old ones. staff did get first pick of the ones for sale when we were selling them- but we ALWAYS paid the amount a customer would have been charged.

as you say you were doing something you thought would help a good cause, not just the person behind the till. i agree with the others, maybe speak to themin the shop and if you're not happy with their response i'd be inclined to write a letter to their head office.

Leanne.

Hi Barbra 2,
I am not really surprised at some of the staff at charity shops helping themselves to donations, it goes on throughout the whole charity setup.
Do you actually believe that everything donated to charity gets to where it's meant to be.?
Do you think that all the money that is given to charities actually goes where its meant to go with huge salaries being paid to the heads of the charities and all the so called running costs,.? I don't think so.

Overseas charities, you only have to look at countries like Africa to see where the donations go, corrupt governments living the high life while the people are starving,
Humanitarian aid syphoned off to purchase arms to support wars and terrorism.
Yes I expect a percentage does trickle down to where its actually meant to be, but more gets syphoned off on the way.
Sorry to sound like an old miserable old cynic, but until charities are more open about where and how the donations end up I believe charity starts at home.

Bet if you went back 5 min later she would have changed lol.

LOL Marion ,
i would have loved to see her face then pmsl
Hazelx

It would have given me the creeps to go in next day and see staff wearing my top.
You should have told her that you decided to buy a new wordrope once you got rid of your fleas and scabies,then walked ou straight faced lol.

Marion

Hi Barbara ,
go in and have a word and if your not satisfied
then write to head office . i would write to head office anyway .
regardless if they say it's the perks of the job or not
and tell them what you are going to do .
oh it makes me so mad when people just take things
instead of paying for it .
sorry rant over .
Hazelx